


For Old Times' Sake

by AWorld0fMy0wn



Category: La casa de papel | Money Heist (TV)
Genre: Abuse of Power, Angst, Drama & Romance, Escape, F/F, F/M, Flashbacks, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Interrogation, Love, Memories, Police Academy, Ralicia, Serquel will also feature, obv
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:34:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 35,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25979059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AWorld0fMy0wn/pseuds/AWorld0fMy0wn
Summary: When Raquel is arrested and taken to the police tent she meets a former friend and colleague, Alicia. Old memories keep bubbling to the surface, and whilst they are Raquel’s only form of escapism, they don’t always bring her the relief she needs.Is Alicia a friend or a foe? What really happened between them in the past?With no way of letting anyone know she’s still alive*, will Raquel manage to escape?[* Contrary to the show, Antoñanzas doesn’t help out Sergio here.]
Relationships: Raquel Murillo/Alicia Sierra, Raquel Murillo/Professor | Sergio Marquina
Comments: 101
Kudos: 126





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi all!
> 
> Talk on twitter (and watching and re-watching LCDP) has often made me think about Raquel’s past and what her friendship with Alicia was like. Although the first time I watched LCDP, Alicia was one of the characters I hated, my perception of her soon started changing. I think there is more to her that we still need to discover. I hope that we will see some of this in Part 5, and hopefully Itziar and Najwa will also have some scenes together (which will make them, and us, very happy). Seeing how when I asked Itziar about Ralicia she basically confirmed* that in the past they were “buenas amigas” (good friends), I let my mind wander and came up with this.  
> (* She was simply sharing her thoughts, but it’s as good as.)
> 
> Although most of this story takes place in the tent, more characters will appear in future chapters.
> 
> Disclaimer: All of these characters belong to LCDP. There are also parts of conversations taken from the show.
> 
> Hope you enjoy it!

It had been a while since I had last felt so alone.

Desperately alone.

We had plans for everything. Everything but this.

Police vans, uniforms, tents, cuffs. They were the very things I had breathed, lived and dreamt about for the best part of 20 years, and yet this was all so very different from anything I had ever known.

The black balaclava was both a blessing and a curse. It disguised my fears whilst also suffocated me. With each step I took, I could feel my heart beat a little faster. If I was struggling to breathe properly before, it only made things harder. Yet, I didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of seeing me break.

The crowd outside had helped. We weren’t alone in this. We had the people’s support. Their chanting was loud. More people realising that they had had enough. It wasn’t all just black and white. Good and bad. The world consisted of a duality of both, and those who claimed differently were probably the most disreputable of all.

I wanted to take it all in. To join them. To let them know who I was.

I was so close. And yet, I couldn’t be further away.

To the people that mattered, I was dead.

To the rest of the world, I was still out there.

A fugitive, in the eyes of the law.

For now, that tent was a place of safety.

Yet, we were the dirt on the soles of their shoes. The kind that fermented and left a lingering smell that was difficult to get rid of and they were ready to do anything as long as they were able to mask the smell and come out smelling of roses.

Rio was an example of what they were ready to do.

_“Sir, get out of here,”_ Suárez had ordered. Those words, their meaning, their intentions had hit me like a baseball bat to the gut.

_Gloved hands over my mouth. Gagged. Defenceless. Bang. The noise vibrated in my head. The bullet bouncing as it hit the ground killed my hopes. Bang. The second bullet served my sentence. Signing my life into their hands._

My ears were still ringing. But I shook my head. I focused on the people around me. Their cheers. Their anger. I couldn’t think of what had transpired in that barn. Not now.

For now, I was somewhat safe.

The tent offered an element of familiarity, and yet, this was completely different to before. As I walked towards it, I knew that my past and present were about to come face to face.

Over the course of my life, I had often stopped to question who I really was. I had often looked at myself in the mirror and barely recognised the person looking back at me. My face was a reminder of the past. Despite the newly developed bags under my eyes, the few lines around my eyes and lips, I still looked practically the same as I did when I first joined the Force. But there were often times when I was no longer sure that the person looking back at me was me. That face reminded me of how much things had changed. Over time, the person in the mirror had grown to represent my beliefs and dreams. But when life took a tumble, those beliefs and dreams were shattered. Without them, I was no longer sure as to who I was. Each time life pulled the rug from under my feet, I struggled to link the person in my head with the person staring back at me. It felt like I was looking at a different person, a person that belonged to the past.

A year and a half waking up to the warm sea breeze, to the sound of the crashing waves, to soft kisses on my neck and cheeks had helped. Being able to breathe in fresh air away from toxicity had left its impact and I had slowly seen its effect taking over me. As I had sat on a hammock watching the waves eating away the shoreline, the knots in my muscles had eroded away with the soft sedimentary rocks I was looking at. Back in Palawan, the person looking back at me had a bigger smile than I had seen in a while. My shoulders were no longer as stiff as before. My muscles weren’t as tense. I started seeing more of my mother in me. I was more eager to try new things, to go on adventures, to let my hair loose. Ironically, with a warrant out for my arrest, I was laughing more and worrying less than before.

The strips of the plastic curtain fell behind me. The crowd’s energy and their chanting faded away. A cloud of eerie silence descended upon me. The previous buzz was replaced with the low humming of computers.

With each step, more people turned to look. I could feel their piercing looks on my face. They had all stopped what they were doing.

I removed the helmet.

I had all their attention. So many familiar faces. People I had grown older with, people who I had laughed with, attended wedding ceremonies of. People who had previously ignored me or my authority were now standing up. The very same people who had sided with Alberto, who had made sure I knew what they thought of me after the first heist. Even those who had been brought from other teams, the best of other districts, had stood up. What did they think I was about to do?

I stood up straighter and removed the balaclava.

I knew about their affairs and misdemeanours. I knew that very few of them could hold their hands up and honestly claim they had never stepped out of line. They were the same looks I’d been given when I first opened a case against Alberto, when I’d first been branded a ‘traitor’. The same looks of disgust. Only now, it was more overt. Now, it was better to show it than to hide it.

However, out of all those faces. One stood out.

All the other faces became a blur. I focused on her and her alone.

That orange fringe. Her high ponytail. I would have recognised her from a mile away, and now she was even more difficult to miss.

Alicia. _The ice queen_ , as we used to call her. Pregnant. Now that was one for the books.

I wondered then if her mind was going down memory lane as it had done the first time we talked on the phone.

I tried to stop myself. Over the years, I had learnt how to put on a stoic expression, how to appear braver than I felt, how to hide my fears or anger. When I couldn’t speak, when it was wiser not to, I learnt that that was the biggest weapon I had.

Despite the front I put up, I was never a fighter or one who favoured confrontations. I had quickly come to realise that there was no winning when it came to sexist comments. I tried to give it back as hard as I got, but I also knew that sometimes that was exactly what they wanted. In the early days, there had been bets on who riled me up the most, so I learnt not to fall for their tricks. I learnt when it was best to walk away. I learnt to choose which battles to fight.

When Alberto was shouting in my ears, holding his fist inches away from my face, it was the one thing I had. There were times when I’d end up getting new bruises for it, but I used to try hard not to give him the satisfaction of seeing the real damage he was causing.

As much as I learnt how to block pain and hide my emotions, some of my strength had also been eaten away.

That stoic look was only a mask for all that was bubbling beneath the surface. The self-doubt, the fear, the panic attacks. There were times when my emotions crept in and threatened to give the game away.

I was stronger now. In the last three years I had worked on building myself up again, and I was not about to let them break my spirit, just yet.

As I looked Alicia in the eyes, I felt that fire burning.

The thrill for a fight. The competitive spirit. Passion and rivalry.

It had been ages since I had last seen her, and yet she looked the same as I remembered.

Just the same as 23-year-old Alicia Sierra, ready to give everyone a piece of her mouth. She would sit quietly in the corner observing everyone. She knew exactly what she wanted and always got it. She was fiery and independent. She had all the boys eating from her hands. Her wittiness often got her in trouble, but she always knew what to do to get away with it. She had a way with her words. She was a performer. Younger boys idolised her, those our age despised her; yet, few dared cross her. She was loyal and honest.

She was my friend and rival.

She had been there for me before. Yet, time had passed.

According to her, I was on the wrong side of justice.

She could be callous and unpredictable, and at that moment, as I stared in her eyes, I didn’t know where that placed me.

*


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for leaving kudos and comments! You have no idea how happy they make me. 🖤  
> 

January 23, 1994. The day is etched in my memory, even though most of it is a blur. It had started off as another normal day. Physical exercise, gun-handling training, lectures.

I could see the only other girl in my class eyeing me as I packed my bag. “What’s with all this attention, Murillo?” Alicia asked as she chewed on a pen.

“Jealous?” I said. The two of us had never really had any friendly conversations before. Lecturers had a habit of pairing us up, thinking they were doing us a favour, but it would always lead to some kind of argument. She always tried to one up me and I wasn’t one to let her win. It was playful, until I scored higher than she did.

She bounced off her chair and sat on the table next to mine. “It’s the third lecturer who’s given you more attention than the norm.” 

I had noticed it, too. As the only two females, we always got more attention than the others, but after lunch, all eyes were on me. From questioning if I was okay, to odd lingering glances. Our last lecturer had even asked to talk to me after class.

_“Everything okay, Murillo?” he asked._

_I nodded. “Yes, sir.”_

_He stared at me and seemed stuck for words. “Coping well? Any difficulties?”_

_“No, sir.”_

_“Very well,” he said, picking up his books. It was my turn to stare. Had I given him the impression I was struggling?_

I shrugged. “We just need more girls.”

“Nah, there’s more to it,” Alicia said.

“What? Do you think I’m doing them all?”

“I get that some boys might get hard when they see you, but I doubt you’re that kind of person,” she said.

“Really? And what if I am?” I was surprised by her admission.

“Then good for you.”

What is wrong with everyone today? I thought.

“Are you done for the day?” she asked.

“Yes. Why?”

“I can be nice, you know.”

“Didn’t know you had it in you,” I told her. I was used to her indifference towards me, unless it involved lecturers and marks; to her snide remarks; to her scoffing at anything she wasn’t involved in.

“Is this the kind of attitude that lands you all your boyfriends?”

“Cause you’re all sweetness, aren’t you?”

“Have you ever seen me with anyone?” she looked at me with those big hazel eyes of hers, daring me to answer her. “I just love to see them sweat, but I wouldn’t touch them with a barge pole, darling… You can have them all.”

“I was going to invite you to join us, but since you’re not interested…”

“I never said that.”

“So you are… interested?” I was surprised to see a smile on her face.

“Where are you going?”

“For a drink or two.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“What’s there to think about?” I shook my head. “I was actually meant to meet them five minutes ago.”

We walked in silence for a while. It seemed like she was lost in her world again.

“Raquel,” she paused. She rarely called me by my first name. “Your dad’s an officer, right?”

“A sub-inspector, actually.” He was the person who had introduced me to the Force, the person who inspired me to be the best version of myself, the reason I was doing this. From a young age, I had always dreamt of becoming an officer. Whereas my sister would always get in trouble for stealing mum’s lipsticks and for breaking her heels, I often got in trouble for misplacing dad’s police hat.

“Have you talked to your mother… or your family today?”

I looked at her. “Why?”

“Just…”

It took a minute for me to put two and two together. I didn’t hear what she said next. I was running to my room. All kinds of thoughts were going through my head. Surely, someone would have said something if anything bad had happened, I thought.

When Alicia came into my room, mum’s words were going round and round in my head.

“ _I wanted to be the one to tell you,_ ” she had said.

_“He’s dead.”_

_“Shot on duty.”_

I was slouched on the floor. My face a mess.

I had no clue what Alicia was saying.

*

“Raquel.” Her hands slammed on the table in front of me. They had brought me in to a secluded section in the tent. There were still monitors in the room, surveillance software applications doing their work. They hadn’t been expecting to have one of us here. If they had, I was sure it would have been empty of everything.

I looked at her.

“Who would have pictured this?” she said. 

I knew her tactics. Her old tactics. How impulsive she could be, how she failed to follow protocol. As we both stared at each other, I realised how much we had both changed.

She pushed a plastic cup towards me. “You must be parched. All that running, climbing up trees.” 

I could easily pretend that the person in front of me was an old friend, yet I knew I would be lying to myself.

“Tell me, what was next?”

I shrugged.

“You’re not going to tell me you didn’t have it carefully mapped out. That you weren’t involved in the plan.”

I shrugged again, holding her gaze. “I followed instructions.”

She pursed her lips. I knew she didn’t believe me. “What are you? His little puppet?” 

I chose to ignore her and instead picked the cup and focused on that.

Having her in front of me was making it hard to focus on the present. My brain was struggling to adjust. Her face and voice were bringing old memories back to surface, and perhaps, they were the perfect distraction; they offered me a chance to escape from that small dark tent.

*

My second year at the Academy brought a whirlwind of emotions. They would have kicked me out had I not been the daughter of the recently deceased sub-inspector. I challenged their authority. I challenged myself; my body and my emotions. It was as though I was playing some kind of endurance test, and I was the only one competing. I went through all the possible phases.

I threw myself at my books. I had my hands up each time a lecturer asked a question. I barely knew night for day. I drank one cup of coffee after another. My hands were constantly shaking. I then started falling asleep during lectures, but no one could say anything because I was also acing all the tests and exams.

Everyone knew about my dad. How could they not? It was on the news and in newspapers. The case had even been discussed in class. Most people shied away from saying anything. “I didn’t know what to say,” one of my classmates later told me. But Alicia was there. She never said much, but she made sure her presence was felt. It was an “Okay, Murillo?” followed by a nod. Offering to get me a coffee when we were the only two in the study room at 11pm. A smile when I answered correctly much to the boys’ dislike.

It was how I ended up crying on her shoulders for the second time. For once, there were no sassy comments, no pitiful glances. She just held my hand.

“It gets better,” she said. “You’ll always miss him, but it won’t hurt like this.”

I looked at her and realised how little I knew about her. Despite being in the same class and having practically lived together for almost two years, she was still a stranger. A sweet, intimidating stranger who had witnessed me at my worst. “How –?”

“Shh. Today’s about you. Have you even given yourself time to mourn him?”

“I haven’t had time.” I hadn’t immediately gone home after mum’s call. For the next two days, I had ignored what had happened. They still had to do an autopsy and we were waiting for some family members to come home from abroad. I went home a day before the funeral, returned to the Academy two days later and then buried myself in my books.

“And what are you doing at the library now? Test week’s over,” she said.

“I can ask you the same thing.”

She released my hand and straightened her shirt. “I certainly wasn’t studying.”

“Well, the year isn’t over. Besides, when we’re out there no criminal is going to wait for me to check my notes. It all needs to be in here,” I said, tapping my head.

“That’s why you won’t be working on your own.”

“What if the others are just as clueless as the rest of the lot in here?”

“I’m sure there are some good ones out there, kidda. Get some rest. You look like you need it.”

She was right. When was she not? I might have been doing well on paper, but I was flunking in another area. The lack of sleep was eating away at my ability to perform tasks that required quick thinking. And that was often a police officer’s best weapon.

Perhaps if my dad, if his colleagues, had been quicker he would still be here today.

Soon books lost their appeal. I swapped them for the gym. I was working out in all of my spare time. Until I woke up in the infirmary. “You over exerted yourself,” they said. I had passed out after working out for four hours straight.

“I never told you to stop studying,” Alicia said when I returned to class.

“Who said I’d stopped?”

“You’re your own worst nightmare.”

After that incident, the gym instructor had his eyes on me. He regulated my training and kicked me out when he’d had enough of my face.

I was again left with more free time on my hands. By then I had almost stopped going home for the weekend. My mum was no longer the fun loving person I knew and I didn’t know how to cope with it. My sister seemed distant, too. I felt like I no longer belonged there, like I had lost my place in the family.

“What do you know?” my sister had said, when I had tried to encourage mum to leave the house for a bit. “You have no idea what it’s been like, and then you come back with your lists of advice, that look of disdain on your face, and a ‘cheer up’, and you think everything will be okay? Well, I’ve got news for you, sis. I’ve tried it all, but that’s not the way things work.”

I knew she was angry; angry at the police force for not protecting dad; angry at me for returning to the Academy and for not showing the right amount of grief; angry at dad for ‘playing martyr’, as she so said; angry at the world. And I didn’t blame her. Her words continued echoing round in my head, even after she had cried and apologised. After all, I knew she was right.

I didn’t help the situation, either. Whenever I went home for the weekend, I always returned to the Academy with one massive hangover and a new surprise. None of my lecturers were too impressed when one Monday I rocked up with a nose piercing. Their sympathy was starting to dissipate. “Remove it or put a plaster on it,” one lecturer had said, looking me up and down. “Leave rebellious phases to teenagers.” Funny how being different was taken as a sign of rebellion, or if you were older, a sign of a midlife crisis.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I look forward to reading your thoughts about this chapter. You can also dm me/talk to me on twitter: @brenda_co


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for leaving kudos and comments! You have no idea how happy they make me. 🖤

Alicia opened the paper file. “Seventy,” she said. “With what we have in those files you’ll be seventy when you get out of jail.” I tried to avoid looking at the photos in front of me. “And Paula 40. And your mother will have been dead so long you won’t be able to find her grave.”

“Just stop. You don’t have to do that,” I said. I knew what she was trying to do. It was the oldest trick in the handbook. The promise of a lenient sentence. “The years are up to the prosecution, not you, and the conviction by the judge.”

“You know very well that the prosecutor and the judge are going to work based on what I write in these reports.” Or whatever CNI decided, I wanted to add. “And I can write whatever I want. What would you like me to write?”

Paula and mum’s smiling faces were looking at me. The smile on my face, hugging them, their love, that feeling that everything would be okay as long as I had them. I knew I couldn’t let myself think about any of that. Instead, I focused on the knowledge that they were safe, that Sergio would protect them. That was all that mattered.

Everything about the current situation was taking me back to a particular classroom, second year in the Academy. A rectangular table between us. A file in the middle. Alicia right opposite me, studying my face, waiting for me to trip. Just like now. Her words on the first day of the heist had brought it all back.

*

We had been paired up and were taking it in turns; interrogator and suspect. We all had a different case and a story to study. I was the number one suspect in a murder case. A 30-year-old male was found drenched in his blood in his home office. My prints were everywhere but I also had an alibi. An unconvincing alibi. I knew I was innocent, Alicia didn’t, and at the rate we were going she never would.

She excelled in everything, exercises like this included, but she never followed protocol. We had been given steps to follow, but she hadn’t even looked at them.

“You’re meant to make me feel at ease,” I told her. “Make me trust you. Learn more about my natural responses by asking easy questions.”

“To hell with that,” she said. “I have a theory.”

“That was one quick interrogation.”

“You were dating, something happened, you snapped.”

“The classic scenario.”

“We found the murder weapon. A broken glass bottle, thrown in a nearby skip, with your prints all over it.”

“We were friends. I was at his house the night before with some other friends,” I told her. “Was it a wine bottle?”

“I never –,” she started saying.

“We drank wine. My prints will obviously be on it. Besides, if I had done it, wouldn’t I have cleaned the bottle off any prints?”

“You’re an amateur, you’re bound to slip. So the one thing that came to your mind was to delete all the camera footage, and to take the murder weapon with you and discard it somewhere else.”

“Only I was out with another friend the day he was killed.”

“Where’s the evidence? Or maybe,” she continued, “you _are_ innocent. Perhaps your friend is the one who needs your alibi.”

“How did you figure that out?” I could see her mind working fast, scrambling for the right piece of jigsaw, trying to piece the whole thing together. Her eyes didn’t leave me. The file on our table remained closed. It was clear that we had both studied the case thoroughly. We had both done our homework. The only notes she needed to read and uncover were the ones hidden in my head.

“Maybe this friend of yours…”

“Juan.”

“Whatever. Maybe he secretly likes you.”

“Why does it always have to be about love?” I complained.

“Okay, maybe he’s just a friend. And maybe… he’s heard of a certain intimate video that was filmed.”

My blood ran cold.

“Maybe he killed him whilst he was attempting to fight for your honour. Maybe it was an accident and he just grabbed the first thing he found. Am I close?”

I stared at her. Was it all pure coincidence?

“You look a bit peaky, dear. Is everything okay?”

“You couldn’t be further away from the truth,” I uttered.

“Really? Your face says otherwise.”

I wasn’t sure whether we were still talking about the case at hand. I glanced at her before I said anything, lest I was reading too much into it. I studied her face; the corners of her lips were fighting a smile, her eyebrows slightly raised. “How do you know?”

“Word gets around, especially about something like that… Who knew you had it in you?”

I felt my stomach lurch. It was a mere fling. I was drunk, and made yet another reckless decision. I seemed to be making a lot of them lately. Jumping into things without considering the consequences. “Who else has seen it?” My voice was down to a whisper.

“Only half our class.” She talked about it lightly. “I say, half…”

I could no longer hear anything. My head was thumping loudly. I looked at Hortigosa, sitting at his desk, at the far end of the room. He was laughing. Laughing like nothing was wrong. Like he hadn’t broken all my trust, and put his ego before my dignity. He had been a friend before that.

I bolted out of the classroom. I ignored our lecturer, the whispers, and the looks I knew I was getting as I ran down the corridor. Alicia was soon chasing me. “Raquel, wait!”

“What?! Do you expect me to just sit there and do nothing?” I said.

“What exactly do you aim to do? He was in class with us.”

“Ransack his room, look for the damn camera. Unless you want to do it for me. Be the guy in your story.”

“About what I said… they might not have actually seen it.”

“It explains the looks I’ve been getting.”

I wanted to believe her. I really did, but it all slotted into place. The comments that didn’t make sense at the time. The attention from people I hadn’t ever talked to. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t realised what was going on. In a way, they had been subtle about it. There was nothing inordinately vulgar about what they had said. It was the usual with some extra, unwanted sauce. They were more daring. There were more ogling looks, more unwanted attention.

By the time I got to his room, I couldn’t care less if there were people around, if anyone saw me as I picked the lock and went in. I didn’t care that I was breaking the law in a place swarming with police. To be honest, that wasn’t even something that crossed my mind, until much later. I could barely see what I was doing. I heard the smashes but had no clue what I was breaking.

Fifteen minutes later, I was outside the classroom, camera in hand.

“Feeling better?” our lecturer said as he came out.

I nodded, unsure of what Alicia had told him. He must have seen my red eyes and pale lips for he didn’t question me further.

I saw red when I saw Hortigosa. I lunged at him, but Alicia held me back. “Do it in private,” she whispered.

I screamed and shouted until I was too tired to say anything else.

“I haven’t been sharing it round,” he said. “No one would have guessed it was you.”

“And that makes it all okay?” His words jarred on my ears. His complete irreverence twisted the knife in deeper. He might not have been sharing the video round, but he was certainly showing it to people. That ‘would have’ felt like he was trying to shift his guilt onto me, like it was my fault they had figured it out, like I didn’t have a reason to be livid at this whole situation because I had singlehandedly brought it onto myself. It was my fault. Not his. For having a go at him in front of others, for injuring his pride. As if they didn’t already know.

“I’m just saying. I don’t know what lies Alicia has been whispering in your ear. She cannot have seen it.”

“The fact she, and so many others, know about it is enough.”

That evening I had a new drinking companion. We were up on the roof of our residence hall. We could see and hear whatever went on in the street and yard below us, but we were far away for anyone to see us. It wasn’t even dark yet and I had already lost count on how much alcohol I had drunk. Apart from the odd comment, we sat and drank in silence. I wasn’t sure if it was because I was lost in my thoughts for most of our time up there, but that silence didn’t unnerve me. With most people, it would have felt awkward and I’d attempt to fill it with idle chatter, but with her it was oddly comforting. As we watched the sun sink lower into the abyss, draining the sky off its colour, I felt my walls inching down with it.

I stared at the video tape in front of me, wondering who had seen it, thinking back on all the comments that hadn’t made sense at the time.

“Stop tormenting yourself,” Alicia said. “Maybe he was right. Maybe he only mentioned it to them.”

“Maybe.” I doubted it though. I wasn’t even sure who I was more mad at; if it was him or myself. Initially, I had thought I had scored high with Hortigosa. He was the best looking in our year. Although his narcissism and cockiness got on my nerves, he was also a good friend. We went out for a while, nothing serious, but I enjoyed my time with him. The friends I had before joining the Academy had grown tired of me and my moods. And there he was, eager to get as drunk as me, to let loose, to live in the moment without thinking of any repercussions. I forgot about any ulterior motives. We weren’t in this together, as I had previously thought. How could we ever be, in a society that deemed women as the lesser sex? There were two of us in it but whereas he’d be deemed as some kind of champion, I was the object to be ogled at, the slut, the one up for grabs.

“Have you even watched any of it?”

I had watched the first bit when I found his camera; I caught the part when he had switched the camera on.

“It might not even be so bad. Might even be artistic.”

I shot her a look. “Careful. It almost sounds as though you’re interested. Curious even.”

She ignored me. “Or you might not even be in the frame. Perhaps it’s only the ceiling that can be seen.”

“I doubt it.”

“And so what? Tell me, what is it that you’ve done that is so wrong? He should be grateful you even set eyes on him. And he knows it, which is why he’s going round boasting he caught your attention. But the only one in the wrong is him.” I didn’t know if it was the cheap gin that did it, an accumulation of the last few hours, or her words, but my cheeks were suddenly wet. “You, cariño, have nothing to be ashamed of. You should boast about your body, not hide it. He doesn’t own any part of you.” Was this really the Alicia I knew? “Let them dream of the goddess you are. Is it any different from what they already do? We can wear whatever we like, and they’ll still be undressing us in their minds. But hold your head up high. Your beautiful body is yours, and only yours. And no video can change that. It’s just a trick they’ve fallen for. They’ll soon realise that you’re the one holding all the strings.”

I wiped my tears. “What are we doing up here then?”

She laughed at my words. “The night is young.”

“There’s one thing I ought to do.” I had been nodding along to her little speech. If I was the marionettist, I had to destroy the thing that gave anyone the power to think differently. I looked around for the trashcan I had spotted earlier and threw the video tape in it.

“Are you sure you want to do that?”

“Why? Do _you_ want to watch it?” I teased. I poured some of the gin that was left, lit a piece of paper and threw it in the trashcan.

As the flames danced and crackled, I thought of Alicia’s words. These last months she had surprised me. Though I still wouldn’t have called us friends, she had been better than most. Whilst everyone else seemed to have grown tired of me and my instable moods and behaviour, she kept coming for more, appearing when I needed someone the most.

I looked at her as she smoked yet another cigarette. The fire reflected in her eyes. Dangerous, warm, comforting.

*

Threatening, intense, ruthless.

I looked her in the eyes. Those sweet deceiving eyes. “No longer my friend. No longer my friend,” I repeated to myself. I had to get out of my head. The person in front of me wasn’t the person I knew back then. I reminded myself of Rio, of the torture he had endured under her hands. Her views and what she was willing to do to reach the end goal weren’t something I could condone. They were part of the reason why we had fallen out. She wasn’t a friend. We were on opposite sides of the battle.

“I don’t know where the Professor is, or what he’ll do,” I told her.

“You have no ideas?” She held my gaze. I wondered whether I was a nobody to her, just another one of her criminals; the lengths she was ready to go through. “Has love made you dim or something?”

“The plan has different types of firewalls. This is nothing to do with our love,” I said.

“Of course it does. Think about it.” I had listened to Alicia attempting to be the voice of reason too many times; both as friends and as colleagues. I knew how sweet she could be. How she tried to make you hang on to her every word, believe her, and trust her. I’d seen many fall for that trick. “In jail, love drains like sewer water. It happens very fast. In two months, it’s already dry. Two months of suffering, or your whole life in jail? Hmm?”

Alicia and love. She was never a romantic.

“If you were reincarnated seven times, you’d never understand the nature of our love,” I replied. She had always found it difficult to understand what made people fall helplessly in love for each other, what it was that made them give everything up for another person. We had argued about it, we had laughed at others. “Only idiots fall in love,” she often said. Until it was her turn to experience it. And even then, it was never as overpowering, as powerful as the very thing she was currently deriding.

“Allow me to tell you about the real nature of your love.” I had to bite my tongue. “One in Soto del Real, and the other in Cádiz, waiting for a conjugal visit once a year. And that’s if you’re lucky because if we don’t catch your sweetheart, then you’ll never see him again in your fucking life. The choice is yours. Either that or actually have the time to raise your daughter.”

I knew this game. I had been at it as long as she had. Knowing me put her at an advantage. She didn’t require any research. “Are you trying to manipulate my emotions, Alicia?” I said.

“I’m just telling you the truth,” she said. “Like I always do.” With those words I felt my walls start to crumble. I wasn’t the only one thinking about the past. I wasn’t sure whether that made me safer or more vulnerable. “Give me your hand.” I looked at her. What was she playing at? “Give me your hand.”

I adhered to her wishes. My eyes didn’t waver from hers. My hand in hers. Her thumb on my knuckles. My emotions were enough of a mess without having the past flash in front of my eyes.

_Her voice. Her hands. Her laugh ringing in my ears. Music playing in the background._

“How many of your old relationships feel completely meaningless now?” she said. Her hand on mine.

_Dancing. Jumping. Her warm breath on my neck._

I tried to pull my hand back. I attempted to regain some form of control.

_Hands intertwined. Another shot of tequila._

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I look forward to reading your thoughts about this chapter. You can also dm me/talk to me on twitter: @brenda_co


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is for all the Ralicia stans out there. Hope you like it!! :)

The lights were low. Red lights filtered through the darkness, pulsing to the beat. I was dancing, singing along, giving the songs my own little twist. The atmosphere inside the club made me giddy, adrenaline pumping through my blood. As the base dropped and the song merged with another, I felt a stranger’s hands on my waist. His body rubbing against mine. “Dance with me,” he whispered.

“Hijo de puta,” Alicia shouted. “Can’t you see you’re not wanted?”

I’d grown used to sleaze bags like him. I often lied. Wore a ring on the fourth finger. Pushed them off. Said I was not interested. Danced with them. Even went out with some of them. It varied according to my mood, how drunk I was, and how charming they were.

It didn’t take long before I felt more unwanted attention behind me.

I took another shot before I turned round. “I’m with her,” I said, smiling giddily, as I moved closer to Alicia and put a hand on her shoulder. I wasn’t sure if she had heard.

My comment had garnered the attention of his friends.

“Prove it. Kiss her,” he said. I had barely heard him, so I doubt she had understood what he had said. She looked at them, ready to throw an insult.

I don’t know if it was the alcohol that made me do it. I felt her surprise as my mouth closed onto hers. Her lips were soft, delicate. I felt the warmth of her skin, the taste of her lipstick. Its taste lingered even after our lips had parted. I was the one who had initiated it, but suddenly she was the one who had all the power. I felt my cheeks turn red under her watchful gaze. “I’m –,” I started to say, before she pressed her lips against mine, muffling my words.

It was different from any kiss I’d ever had. It was more exciting, more passionate. She was more present than any other boy or man I’d ever kissed. One of her hands was on my chin, caressing me. The other held me closer. My heart was beating so fast I was sure she could hear it.

“You’ve got skills,” she later said, as we walked back to our residence hall, arm in arm, holding each other up, trying to stop the other from falling flat onto her face.

Nothing was said about it; until the next time we got drunk, until the next time it happened. It was an unspoken deal. Speaking about it would make it more real, would complicate things, and would stop it from happening again.

*

“The same thing will happen this time,” Alicia continued, “and you know it.” Again, she had all the control. She pulled my hand closer to her, held it tighter and only let go when she deemed fit.

*

There was no hiding anything from her. She knew exactly what she had to do. She knew the right questions to ask, the right words to console me. I felt comfortable talking to her, and I often didn’t realise I was bearing my soul out to her until I had already blurted out everything. She knew about all, or most, of my love interests. She had been there, to witness it all happen; from seeing me fall in love to wiping my tears when it all went wrong. It happened a lot during those days.

She laughed. “Raquelita, you can’t have possibly fallen in love again,” she told me. “Slow down.”

“I swear, my heart feels like it’s about to –”

“- burst each time you see him?” she asked.

I nodded.

“Honey, you said the exact same words only a month ago. Then look what happened.”

“It’s different.”

“Yes, he has a beard and he’s Italian. I can really see it going the distance.”

“I won’t tell you anything next time.”

“Pinky promise?”

“Ha. You think you’re hilarious, don’t you?”

“I don’t think. I know I am. And you love me for it,” Alicia said.

“Really?”

She held my hand and drew patterns on the back of my hand. She was so soft it tickled. She held my gaze as her fingers opened my palm and drew caressing circles on it. She shut me up with one look, a mischievous grin on her face. Her fingers traced the blue vein on my wrist, up to my elbow.

“How did you do this?” she asked, examining a fading white scar I had on my arm.

“I nicked it with a broken glass bottle.”

She leaned down and blew soft kisses on it. Her eyes never leaving mine.

Her fingers continued caressing my skin, until she got to my neck.

“So what is it about this Italian guy that you like so much?” she asked.

I looked at her. Unable to say a word.

She laughed. “Cat bit your tongue?” She pushed me down as her fingers did the trick, as her lips planted soft kisses on my neck and moved down to my chest.

“Are you too sober for this?” she asked.

For this. I didn’t even know what the hell ‘this’ was. I didn’t know what I wanted, what we were doing, how I felt about it. It was new. It was insane. It was exciting. It felt good. So good. I wanted more, but I also didn’t know how I’d feel about it that night or the next day. 

Her hands were playing with the hem of my trousers. “So?”

“Yes,” I uttered.

“Yes, too sober? Or yes, continue?” Her hand had already slipped beneath my clothes.

How could I tell her to stop when my body was begging her to carry on?

*

As I looked straight in her eyes, I thought about how things had changed. The hands and lips that had once comforted me were now also the tools that could destroy me.

We never put a name to it. It was never official. There were other relationships. Other flings. I still went to her each time something went wrong. I still gave her little titbits of advice she never followed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I look forward to reading your thoughts about this chapter. You can also dm me/talk to me on twitter: @brenda_co


	5. Chapter 5

“How many of your old relationships feel completely meaningless now?” she had said.

José. His family were family friends. When we were five, we had exchanged a candy ring and had promised each other we’d one day get married. His family then moved away to Malaga. We didn’t see each other again until we were seventeen. For the first part of our relationship, we went everywhere together. At the time, I hadn’t realised that I was also alienating myself from my friends. I truly believed that destiny had brought us back together. That we were meant to be. I almost didn’t join the Academy because of him. During the first year, I travelled home every weekend; every day off we were given. Yet, there were times when I ended up spending all my time in my room at home. Each time I went home and realised he had other plans, I pretended I was okay, that I knew about them, that I was there to see my parents and my sister. I paid his train tickets to come visit me. I’d wait for him like an idiot. Turned out he didn’t like that he was dating a police recruit. It wasn’t good for his male ego. Three years and four months gone, just like that.

Santiago. An artist, a creative soul. I met him before an exam at university. He was studying Art. I was following a part-time Bachelor course in Criminology with Psychology. I was tired after a day of work, trying to cram in some last minute studying. I would have slept through my exam if it wasn’t for him. He had a radiating smile, which was probably what first attracted me to him. He was charming and kind hearted. But at the end of the day, I wasn’t the kind of woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with; his words not mine. Apparently, I was too serious for him, too uptight. It took him two years and eight months to realise that. By the time he told me, I had already built a beautiful future with him in my head.

Alberto. A marriage and a child. It had started off so well. He was charming, a gentleman. We shared so many interests. I enjoyed talking to him. We talked about everything. He was a good listener. He made me feel like I was all that mattered in the world. He was sweet and caring. Even when it started going so terribly wrong, he was still able to remind me of what he had been, of all that he could be, of what we could be like. He’d treat me to presents, dinner dates, surprises, little things that made me smile. He encouraged me, supported me, celebrated my achievements, listened to me and was by my side when I was struggling. There used to be a day when he’d defend my honour when someone passed a misogynistic comment. Until he was the one who’d start them and I had to smile along or pay the consequence. Being a wife, a mother and a daughter suddenly turned into a competition of who I loved the most. He was once willing to do anything for me. Until he used every past action as a reminder of all that he’d done. Apparently, he was the one who had done all the sacrifices. 

They were some of my longest relationships. I had higher hopes for all. I loved. I lost. A part of me had died with them.

Alicia knew about my past relationships. I had opened up to her about them. In the end, we both had. But now, that made me the easier prey.

And then there was Sergio. I was waiting for her to give me her two pence about him.

“Sergio Marquina. Emotional coldness. Compulsive narcissism. Socially inept. Psychopathic traits. In short, a real gem,” Alicia said.

I wanted to correct her. Give her a proper description of him. But I also knew it was useless. I’d only be feeding them with knowledge. He was the only one she had no idea of. It was ironic how the one she was chasing, was also the one she knew the least about. The information she had obtained didn’t describe him. It was what they wanted to believe. Otherwise, their idea of bad and good would be thwarted. “Well, a report made without interviewing the subject by your mindless dogs. I can assure you, he’s much more fun than that.”

“Charming.” She laughed. Her mocking laugh got to me more than those words but I just smiled. “I know. A psychopath can be a lot of fun.” Let her think whatever she wanted. “Then there’s your profile.”

“Huh?” My profile. My heart missed a beat. I was intrigued, but I also wasn’t sure I wanted to find out what had been included; what she was going to come up with; what was written by people who I’d grown older with. People who were meant to know me. People who now despised me. “What’s in my profile?” I asked.

“That you’re the type that gets hooked by bastards like this guy.” It was Alicia’s work. She knew Alberto; could never stand him. The others, Angél excluded, couldn’t possibly say something like that. How could they? When they had categorically dismissed my statements against Alberto. When he had been deemed as the victim and held on a pedestal. “You idealise them,” she continued. “And little by little, you get smaller and smaller by their side.”

It’s all a ploy, I repeated in my head. I wasn’t going back there.

“Then they use you. Manipulate you.”

I wasn’t revisiting that time of my life. Not in this tent. Not now. I focused on her words, her face, the plastic behind her. Anything to stop myself from being bombarded with memories.

“When did you lose your instincts, inspectora? Was it before the Professor entered your life? Because Alberto used to beat you up. How does this one humiliate you?”

No meditation helped me then. Nor the time that had passed. Nor the therapy sessions I had taken.

_“You’re useless. Pathetic.”_

_“Do you deliberately wind me up?”_

Alberto’s words were ringing in my ears, as if he had just uttered them.

_“It’s all your fault. You made me do it.”_

It was what he used to say after each blow. It was what I had come to believe. What I had made myself believe. Why else would he do it? What else could describe his sudden change in behaviour?

His words. My words. My fault.

Maybe I liked it. She wasn’t the first person to insinuate that.

I focused on my surroundings, on the table in front of me, the orange pen in Alicia’s hands, the papers in front of her. Anything to get my mind off those dreadful memories. I wouldn’t let myself go there. I was stronger. I knew better. I couldn’t be held responsible for his actions. I wouldn’t.

“First, you use my mother’s Alzheimer’s, and now domestic violence,” I slowly told her.

“Tell me you don’t see a pattern here. Tell me you never heard your mind going ‘click’ and thought, ‘Watch out. This guy could be a real piece of shit.’ Tell me it’s not true.”

It had been years since we had last seen each other, and yet she still had the power to read me, as she did when we were friends.

After Alberto, I swore I would stay clear off men. And when it happened, when I fell head over heels in love again, I was bound to make comparisons, wasn’t I? Even if Sergio could never compare.

Yet, there were times when I questioned everything. After all, Alberto was once as sweet as Sergio. He only had eyes for me. He treated me well. He loved me. So what was so different?

Alicia saw it. She warned me against Alberto back then. But did I listen? Did I realise what I was heading into? Hell, no. My head was up in the clouds. One look at the place around me and I wasn’t sure this was any different.

 _“You’ve already fucked up my life,”_ I had said. I had regretted it when I was stuck in the chicken coop. I hated that it was the last thing I had said to his face. Yet, I’d be lying if I said that a part of me hadn’t wondered if it was true. He had given me a taste of Paradise. He had been my forbidden fruit, alluring and promising, but I had only been allowed one small bite. It was snatched away as quickly as it had been given to me. Instead, it had led me to this tent, a lengthy prison sentence looming over me. I was left to wonder what I would be doing if I had never met him, if I hadn’t chosen to go to Palawan, if I hadn’t joined the heist.

None of our recent arguments helped.

 _“You know the protocols, how they negotiate, but so do I. I got you last time, Raquel,”_ Sergio had said. Everything I knew had been invalidated. My knowledge. Our relationship.

_“I must be an idiot because I thought we’d fallen in love.”_

_“I never asked you to come with me.”_

I hadn’t had time to think about the conversation we’d had that morning; how his words had stung.

I tried to block these thoughts.

_“She’s just bluffing.”_

_“She hung up, and we didn’t even play our hand!” I told him._

_“She went after you because you’re the weakest link.” The look on his face hurt as much as his words. Disgust, disdain. The way he looked down at me. I felt like a hindrance._

And I _had_ seen that look before. I had grown used to it. But never from Sergio.

“What would he do for you? Would he follow you to an island with his mother and daughter? Would he follow one of your plans?” Alicia asked. “How many times has he listened to your ideas? Once. Or did you always follow him like a little puppy?” I begged her to stop in my head. “I warned you about Alberto. Complete motherfucker. And I’m warning you about this one.” The worst thing about it all was that it was all true. I was alone at a crossroad. Unsure. A thousand questions going through my head as I tried to stifle my thoughts. “I’m going to ask you a very simple question, Raquel. Do you deserve to spend 30 years of your life in jail for an idiot in a mask?”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: Domestic violence  
> Although there is nothing overly graphic, there are some scenes of emotional abuse, gaslighting, and mention of physical abuse.

Thirty years.

Thirty years ago, I was just a few years older than Paula. I was a completely different person.

In thirty years’ time I would come out to a different world. With my genes, it would be one I would have long but forgotten. Yet, the chances of living to see that day were low.

An ex-copper in jail. A traitor. They’d have a feast.

I had seen pictures of bent coppers who had ended up inside; whose murders were made to look like suicides by fellow inmates. Officials turning a blind eye, despite the autopsy reports.

Bruised faces, bruised torsos.

It wasn’t an image that was new to me. It wasn’t one I desired to relive. As the tent in front of me blurred out and I was back in my mind, I could see my own chest; black, blue and yellow blotches decorated it.

Alicia had brought back the memories and had abandoned me with them.

_Alberto’s face. The resounding slap. Ringing in my ears._

_“You’ll regret this.”_

_My chest. The pain._

_His hands all over me. Feeling worthless. The darkness. The panic attacks._

_“You’re pathetic.” Fear. Humiliation. Shame. Anger._

_“No one will believe you.”_

_My trembling hands._

_“Stop making a big deal out of it.”_

_Unable to get out of bed. Paula crying. Feeling helpless._

_“I was joking.”_

_The self-doubts. Hating myself._

_“It won’t happen again.”_

_My muffled screams._

_Wanting it all to end._

I almost wanted Alicia to come back in. Yet, I knew that her words and her presence were making me delve deeper into the past. It was that helplessness, feeling so alone, again, that was erasing all that I’d managed to overcome.

*

He was four years older. He had thick luscious hair that covered the nape of his neck, a messy fringe which he often pushed back when he explained something, and a long stubble. He was eloquent and sharp-witted. It had been two months since he had joined our district but I still hadn’t talked to him, except for the odd hello and to exchange files.

I was meant to be writing a report, but I couldn’t concentrate. It didn’t help that his office was opposite my desk, and the blinds of his office window were open. He was talking to someone on the phone, laughing.

I looked down at my papers. I tried to write something, but my eyes were soon back on him. I longed to be the one making him laugh, to put my fingers through his hair, to have intelligent conversations with him.

“Don’t tell me…,” Alicia said from behind me.

“What?”

“No.” She turned my chair round to face her. “You and Vicuña?” she laughed.

“I wish.”

“No, honey. Count yourself lucky. You don’t want someone like him.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s trash. Trust me.”

I implored her to continue.

“Just take my word for it.”

“You can’t say something like that and stop there,” I told her. “Dish the dirt.”

“I don’t have any stories to tell. He just lets off a bad vibe.”

“A bad vibe?” I laughed.

“Look at the way he lords over people. He’s only just come here and he already thinks he owns the place. Trust me; you deserve better.”

I chuckled away as I attempted to continue working on my report. She had been eyeing his position so I expected nothing better from her.

It took me a while before I actually talked to him, and a few more weeks before we went on our first date. By then, Alicia and Alberto had clashed on multiple occasions. Her distaste for him was even bigger.

_*_

I tried to stretch my back and neck. It had only been a few hours but I was already tired of sitting in the same position. My muscles were already starting to protest. I tried to study what was happening on the other side of the tent, and caught Alicia looking in my direction. She held her drink up, and smiled my way.

Her smile was more animated than the one I had grown used to seeing on Alicia’s face towards the last few months we had worked together. Yet, it was just as fake.

I thought back on Alicia’s forced smiles each time she spotted Alberto and me together. The way she would stare at him and cross her arms when he approached us. He wasn’t her biggest fan, either. He couldn’t understand how or why I was friends with her. “You’re so different,” he would say. He wasn’t wrong, but he also didn’t know her the way I did.

He had blamed her the first time we broke up. Again, he had been right. She meddled and got into my head. But it was impossible to keep blaming her when she had moved away and we kept falling out. It was work, my Masters, wanting more freedom, more attention, not knowing what we wanted. We spent two years and a half in an on-again, off-again relationship. We spent more time apart than in a relationship. Yet, during those weeks we weren’t together, we still shared amicable conversations. There were coffee breaks and lots of laughter, drunken nights and philosophical arguments. We talked about science and psychology until we ended up back in each other’s arms. We kept cycling back and forth. We saw other people in between, but no one ever won me over the way he did. Two years after our last break up, we met again. We had both changed districts by then. He had started working with Forensics in the Canillas district, I had moved to Headquarters. I thought it was destiny pulling us back together.

I braced myself as Alicia made her way towards me. She paused before stepping into my partition. She turned round. There was a phone call for her. I could hear her voice echoing in my head, her words coming back to mind. “Don’t come crying to me when it all goes sour,” she used to say. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t go to her when I finally realised she had been right.

It was difficult to maintain our friendship when our views with regard to law enforcement changed, when we no longer worked together. Our good cop, bad cop routine no longer appealed to me. The law, the protocols, the interrogation techniques we had been trained to use were all there for a reason. I didn’t feel comfortable with bending rules to fit our purposes; with exerting persistent pressure on suspects, with belittling them, or with unwarranted arrests. Most of the suspects we interviewed weren’t innocent, and yet, I still couldn’t condone the level of intimidation that Alicia felt comfortable with.

It was ironic how that level of intimidation had me changing partners and the place of work, whilst I let myself be subjected to it in my own house.

*

It had been one long, hectic day. I had been called in to work at 5am. A four-year-old girl had gone missing two days before. I had been careful not to wake Alberto and Paula, left a note on the kitchen counter and tip toed out the door for work.

As soon as I walked in, I could sense the emotionally charged atmosphere. Despite it being so early, everyone was buzzing around. I paused in front of the detective board that been drawn up as Ángel clued me in on what had happened. It had been 51 hours since the girl had been found missing. She had disappeared from her own room. “We need a fresh pair of eyes,” the commissioner said. Every minute was precious.

I had called home the first free five minutes I had. By the time I called, it was already 9am. Alberto wasn’t pleased. It was meant to be my day off, but I could hardly say no when I had been given the details about the case.

14 hours later and still nowhere near solving the case, I left work. There was nothing but dead ends. I needed time to think and I still had a report to write, but I knew I could do those at home. I wanted to, at least, be able to tuck Paula in to bed.

At 12 am, with Paula fast asleep, her school bag and her lunch packed, her uniform ironed out, dinner ready and the dishes washed, I was finally in front of my laptop with my seventh cup of coffee by my side.

It had been 70 hours since the girl had been found missing. I was fighting sleep, writing away.

“I can’t believe you’re spending so much time focused on work,” Alberto said from behind me.

I turned to look at him. “Sorry, honey. It’s –,”

“We’ve barely talked all day.” He had been quiet during dinner. I had tried to ask about his day, about Paula, but he wasn’t in a mood to talk. He had just stared at me as I washed the dishes and cleaned the kitchen. I knew he was still seething over how I had gone in to work.

Lately, I had been trying to spend more time at home. When possible, I tried to stick to my working hours and refused over time. I had been doing more night shifts, which left little time for sleep, but at least I was home during the day. It left me running on low battery, but I wanted to be there for Paula, to be more present in her life.

“Don’t you care about me? Don’t you care about Paula?” he continued.

“Of course I do. You know I do.” I was taken aback by those questions. “But, you know what it’s like. You’ve heard about the kidnapping. The poor girl’s around Paula’s age. Her parents are inconsolable.”

“And have you solved it? Have you found her?

“Not yet,” I said. I felt bad for not spending more time at home. I felt bad for not being out there, helping out.

“The first 72 hours are almost up,” he reminded me. “Is there a ransom to be paid? Any proper leads?”

I shook my head.

“What are the odds of finding a missing child after 72 hours? You know as well as I do the whole operation is a waste of time and resources. If she’s ever found, you’ll get a decaying corpse. Besides, your only suspects are the parents, and if they’ve involved you, their only desire is to break them and make them confess. So, don’t give me that bullshit of doing it for the child or the parents.” His tone of voice had changed. He was demeaning and condescending. “I’m not an idiot, Raquel. I thought this is what you wanted. A kid, a family. I thought you’d change when we had Paula. I gave you everything. If you’re no longer interested, just let me know.”

I was no longer sure where this had come from. Was it really over one fourteen-hour shift? He often spent more time at work than me. “What are you –?”

“I could always just take Paula and go,” he said. His tone was cold. It scared me. He was out of the room before I could say anything else. I stared at the door, at the place he’d been a few seconds before. His words felt as though he had just poured a bucket of ice-cold water down my back.

It was true that there were times when my line of work left me busier than ever, but he knew all that. He knew I couldn’t just turn down work. In his eyes, I was lazy when I worked less than him, a neglectful wife and mother when I worked more. There was no winning, and yet I felt bad. I had barely seen Paula that day and I knew I had another long day ahead of me.

When the alarm rang the next day, I knew it was going to be one long nightmare. It had gone past 2 am when I had finally made it to bed, and when I did, I wasn’t able to fall asleep. I kept thinking of Alberto’s words. I kept imagining falling asleep and waking up to find that Paula and Alberto had left.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope this was okay.
> 
> I found it difficult to describe the Alberto that Raquel fancied. I guess, he's the kind of guy whose looks deteriorate alongside his personality. Hope that scene isn't too cringey. 
> 
> I would love to hear what you think about this chapter. As always, comments and kudos are greatly appreciated. They truly make my day.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: Domestic violence (emotional and physical abuse, and gas lighting)

I was tired. My stomach hurt.

I eyed the metal bucket in the corner of the tent. Another way to humiliate the traitor. I stopped myself from thinking about that. I had seen the hatred in their eyes. I refused to think of all they’d eagerly do to me without blinking an eye, disregarding any code of ethics.

I wasn’t sure whether or not I was happy to see Alicia. I hoped that my memories would stop their assault on me. Yet, I also knew that her words could easily set them off again, that my future was in her hands.

“They just brought us the ambulance you used as a communication centre,” she said. I wondered why she was telling me this. I knew there was more to it. 

“You know who’s examining it?” She looked me in the eyes. It almost felt as though she was trying to tell me something. I longed to go back to when things were so much easier, to when we could understand each other with just one look. And yet, regardless of how many years had passed, one look was all I needed. Realisation dawned on me. She didn’t have to say anything else.

I scoffed and turned to look away. Joder. Out of all the people.

She chuckled. “Alberto, your ex.”

I would be lying if I said I hadn’t expected this. After all, we had liaised with his team during the first heist. He had been hailed and praised, whilst I was investigated by my superiors and lynched by the media. This time round, he was no longer just an esteemed officer. He was also an anguished father whose daughter had been kidnapped by the same group of criminals.

“He’s not just the best at what he does,” she said. “He also really wants to fuck up your life a little more.”

_“You’re an idiot. A stupid, selfish idiot.”_

_I felt his clenched fist collide with my stomach. My breath was sucked out of me, my muscles tensed involuntarily._

_“Good luck on making anything stick.”_

_His malicious laugh._

One mention of his name and the memories were back. Different flashbacks. It felt as if I had just ended that relationship.

“But there’s another option,” Alicia continued. I looked at her. What was she going on about? I noticed the way she looked behind her. It’s a trick, I repeated to myself. Es un truco. She wasn’t to be trusted.

She leaned down. I was intrigued. “I could get in the ambulance before him, before anyone else, and get rid of all the evidence.”

I wished to trust her. To have someone on my side. But this was Alicia; master of compartmentalising. Unlike me, she was able to leave the past behind her. I doubted it would be this easy. I knew it wouldn’t. If anything, she was probably thriving on this, happy to be the one pulling the strings. “You’ll find nothing,” I told her.

“Fuck, Raquel. It’s like you’re new at this. There’s always something.” She stood back up. “You’ll see. Something in there will lead us to your mother and your daughter.”

We had been careful. Yet, I couldn’t push away the feeling that she was right. We barely had enough time to escape, let alone time to clear the vehicle.

“You’ll see,” she repeated before walking away.

It was becoming harder to keep a brave face. I missed Paula. Her sweet voice. Her little hugs. Her kind nature. Her unconditional love. Her cheekiness. Even her hard-headedness. I missed my mum. Her ability to make me feel better in seconds. Her comforting hugs. Her words of advice. I missed Sergio. I missed his awkwardness. His ability to make me feel worthy of love. His willingness to protect me and make me feel good about myself. His soft kisses. He had made me feel less lonely. He had taught me how to live again, how to breathe again without constant fear. I knew he would do everything in his power to get me out of here if only he knew I was still alive. Despite our arguments, despite the doubts that Alicia had awakened, I longed for nothing more than to be in his arms.

I missed them. They were the ones that mattered, and I knew that the odds of seeing them again were stacked against me.

Instead, I was stuck with people whose only interest was to see me crumble.

My past was back to haunt me.

*

From the first days in our station, I always knew Alberto was intelligent. He was meticulous in his work. He was wise and knew what he was doing. He was calculating. He was the best in his field. He knew what he had do to hide evidence, to make me doubt myself and everyone else, to trigger my anxiety, which he would then use against me. “Don’t get so worked up, Raquel,” he’d say as he lorded over me, a sadistic grin on his face.

I was backed into a corner. The drawer knobs digging into my back. His spit landed on my face as he spoke. “Do you know what they were talking about today?” he said.

He waited for a reply.

I shook my head.

“You. They were laughing at you. You’ve turned me into a laughing stock.”

It had been a while since I had seen any of his colleagues. How had I ended up in their conversation?

“You think you’re clever, with your degrees and your promotion. But you’re useless. What was the last big case you solved?”

Most of our recent cases had been petty thefts, car accidents, silly quarrels. Nothing major. Even then, I barely had anything to do with them. In the last few months, I had mostly worked on training new officers. And then, last week, a dead boy had shown up, with a note saying they’d soon strike again. I’d been brought in as the Chief investigator, but it was Forensics, Alberto’s team, that had solved it. I had discussed some of my suspicions with Alberto and sent some items for further testing, but they were the ones who came up with the final conclusive reports. I didn’t know when this had turned into a competition rather than working together for the common good.

His hands were wrapped around my arms. I could feel the bruises forming as he kept exerting pressure.

“I won’t let you humiliate me.”

“You’re hurting me,” I half-whispered as he shook me. The person in front of me wasn’t really Alberto. It was his anger taking over. He was blinded by it, unable to control it. Yet, my body wasn’t so forgiving. It had been a week since he’d last punched me and I still winced each time I had to sit down. My stomach was still blue. Regardless of who it was, I was still scared of the harm he’d cause, the pain he’d inflict. My body felt heavy and rigid. My chest felt tight and hot. I hated myself. I hated having to utter those words. I felt weak and defenceless. I almost wished he hadn’t heard me.

“You’re pathetic,” he spat, before leaving the room.

*

After the first heist, my nightmares had been back in full force.

There were times when I was back to questioning what had been real, and what I had imagined. Alberto had been clever about it. I had studied perpetrators like him, I was meant to be a psychologist and I still hadn’t realised what had been going on. I failed to see the signs, I turned a blind eye, I bit my tongue instead of speaking up. I forgot how to defend myself. In a way, in the early days, Sergio had done the same as Alberto. He had tricked me and had lied to me. I fell for both of their lies. I believed them. I trusted them.

I had dreamt of Paula being gone. My mum blaming me for everything; for driving a wedge between her and my sister, accusing me of lying about Alberto, telling me I didn’t deserve love. I had dreamt of Alberto. He was back in my ears, threatening me, whispering degrading terms, hurting me. Sergio was there too. Laughing at me, deriding me.

At times, Sergio and Alberto intertwined; I could hear Alberto shouting at me but Sergio was the one glaring at me. Other times, they joined forces. We were back in Sergio’s house in Toledo. They choked me then tied me up. They laughed at me as I begged them to let me go.

Laura. Ángel. My colleagues. Media reporters. Random people. They were constantly there. Pointing their accusatory fingers. They wanted me dead. They came for me in my dreams. They knocked the door down and I had nowhere to hide, no one to turn to. All the people I ever cared about where there, watching it happen. No one said anything. 

There were times when my nightmares would make their way into my day. It felt as though they were real. I was quieter and wanted to be left alone. In Palawan, Sergio was there. I’d wake up to him holding my hand or kissing me gently on my shoulders. Yet, there were days when I needed space to think. They made me question everything, made me feel guilty, and left me in a haze. They stained my memories and my grasp of reality.

I tried to focus on what was going on in the tent, but it was impossible to hear anything.

I tried to close my eyes. I needed to rest if I wanted to maintain a clear mind. I knew Alicia wasn’t going to let me sleep though. Even if she did, I was almost scared of what could happen when my consciousness was dimmed. My heart started beating faster each time I closed my eyes. My memories and my thoughts were my worst enemies. I was constantly being assaulted.

I stared at Alicia the next time she entered. She was as full of energy as when we were younger. I watched on as she laid out her mini-exhibition, complete with evidence marking numbers and puppets.

“We’ve got… one: the ambulance.” She put an evidence-marking card on the table and imitated the ambulance’s siren. “Two: the crazy grandma. ¿Dónde estoy? Ay no puedo,” she said, putting on a stringy voice. “Three: the motherless child. Mamá. Mamá.”

Her voice penetrated my head like an electric drill. She looked at me after pulling out each toy, puppet or photo. I knew that Paula’s and mum’s puppets were there as an attempt to break me. To her, this was yet another performance. She had once told me that the interrogation room was her stage. When dealing with suspects and criminals, she wasn’t Alicia Sierra. She acted according to the person in front of her. I never knew why she didn’t just change jobs. She would make a brilliant performer. I tried to focus on that instead of thinking about my mum or Paula.

“Four: the Professor’s love.” There was a reprimanding tone in her voice. Her little performance was over. She couldn’t understand why I was doing this. “Which won’t last past the second conjugal visit when you’re in jail,” she said. “And now, the final scenario.” I jumped when she destroyed her little set up and sent the cards and toys tumbling to the ground. 

I was tired. My emotions were a mess. I could feel myself slipping.

I didn’t want to have to choose. How could I trust anything they said? Yet, the possibility of seeing Paula grow older and being able to hug my mum again was beckoning me. What kind of person did it make me if I subjected either of them to any pain? Yet, I also knew that if Paula were to make her way back to Spain, Alberto would gain sole legal custody. That in reality, the chances of seeing Paula again before she was of legal age were slim, and by then, Alberto would have probably filled her head with lies about me.

It also meant I’d have to betray Sergio and the rest of the gang.

“If you cooperate, the prosecutor will request 12 years, which will turn into ten. You’ll be out in five. That’s what your life could be. If you don’t cooperate, 30 years.” I tried to hold in my emotion. I was shaking. Scared. Confused. Unsure of what was best. Unsure of what was true and what wasn’t. “That’s what your life will be. You decide, inspectora.”

For now, they were all still safe. I refused to put anyone in harm just to save myself.

I would have to pay the price.


	8. Chapter 8

I tried to study what was going on inside the tent, gain an understanding of the mood out there. Tamayo kept pacing from one side to the other like a helpless dog. Alicia stared at the screen in front of her, constantly looking for something to snack on. Ángel was bent at his desk. People kept coming and going, glances thrown my way. I sensed their frustration growing. Their pace quickening. Tamayo getting more visibly annoyed. Although I couldn’t hear anything, I could see him barking orders, scratching his head, arguing with Alicia.

As time passed, more people started leaving the tent, and despite their frustration, the situation seemed rather calm. From Alicia’s incessant visits, I assumed they had no new leads. They were desperate for something.

As if on cue, Alicia appeared again. “What’s it going to be?”

There was nothing to be said. This was starting to feel like some kind of broken record.

“Tommaso Buscetta. Member of the Sicilian Mafia. He was given a new identity, and placed in a Witness Protection Programme. Max Mermelstein. Drug smuggler. Released after two years. His whole family was relocated. Frank –”

“Juwan Gatlin, Terry Butera, Kenneth Bourland, William Heiler,” I replied. Informants that were killed due to lack of proper protection, others whose plea arrangement was reneged. Over the years, I had read about so many similar cases. It was part of the interrogation technique. We knew it would be one of their bargaining tools if any of us were caught; just as I had done with Rio and with Tokyo. Sergio had taught them well. Yet, this time round our game had changed. During our time at the Monastery, we knew that Rio’s torture would be playing on all our minds if we were caught. I had done further research about it whilst we were in Italy. Yet, these people were all strangers. We knew their names, we knew some of their stories and court cases, but they were so far away from our shore.

“Maria Sanchez, Javier Ortiz and Pablo Días,” I continued. They were involved in a series of arson attacks that had led to the death of four people; it was our first case together. We had played that card, got the information we wanted but they all got life imprisonment.

She nodded, a smile forming on her face. She remembered. “This is _your_ life we’re talking about.”

Exactly, I thought.

“Just give me something to work with here. I’d hate to see you rot inside.”

She was out of the tent as quickly as she had entered it.

My concept of time was already starting to deteriorate. The pressure on my bladder didn’t help. Every minute felt like hours. But it seemed like Alicia had exited my part of the tent, and stormed back in, in a matter of seconds.

“Those people you mentioned before…,” she said. “You’re none of those people. You might put on a brave face, but this is not you. You’re not a hardened criminal. It will eat away at you.”

I remained quiet.

“Joder, Raquel. You’ve dealt with people after similar cases. Can you possibly say that this heist will leave no victims? That none of those hostages will need counselling? They’ll wake up screaming, covered in sweat, thinking they’re still in there.”

She was right. Of course she was. It had been the part that I hated the most about my job. It made me feel helpless. And yet, here we were.

We had the public’s support, but the people inside were also victims. I wondered what they would say when they watched back the news to see that there were people cheering for their kidnappers, what they would struggle with the most, what they’d have nightmares about.

*

Two men had opened fire in an alley in Alcorcón. There were four deaths, and over a dozen more were injured. A month later, we were still collecting evidence. The ones who had been most affected by that day’s traumatic events were the key to catching the culprits. I visited them in hospital whilst they were still recovering from surgery. I went to their houses; some were still finding it difficult to venture outside. They were still shaking as they recounted what had gone on, but questioning them was unavoidable.

“Esto no es real, I kept repeating. It’s not real. I was paralysed,” one of the witnesses told me.

“I didn’t get a good view of them. I was hiding under a table the whole time. But I still see them every night,” another one said.

A year later, we had our men – two cousins. At court, some of the victims had read out their victim impact statements. 

“I’m meant to be one of the lucky ones. I wasn’t injured. I didn’t lose anyone I know. Yet, that night changed me. Going out has become a struggle. Every loud noise takes me back to that street, cowering in the corner. Helpless.”

Another case. A stabbing. I was one of the first to arrive on the scene. I heard the screams and cries as I made my way towards the schoolyard. It was still empty. Everyone was still inside. In a place that should never be tarnished by blood or fear.

And then the doors opened and the first class came out. I could see the fear in their eyes, their panic-stricken faces. They had witnessed scenes no one should ever have to face. They were crying, trembling.

A group of them ran towards me, their hands up, crying. “There’s blood everywhere,” one of them said. A fourteen-year-old boy had carried out the attack. It was a schoolmate.

“His face. I can’t forget his face. He looked so angry.” It was what the young girl had kept repeating over the course of our interviews.

*

Their words had stayed with me. It scared me to think of some of the emotional scars we were inflicting on the people inside the bank.

Alicia pulled a Dalí mask from her lap, put it on and stood up. “This is what will haunt them.” I couldn’t see her unless I looked to my left. She took her gun out of her holster and used it to point to her mask. “These.” She paced behind me. “Only your lot have bigger guns.” I jumped as she hit the back of my chair. The chair rattled, rattling me with it. “And I doubt it’s just for show.” She hit the chair again. My breath hitched. The chair clanged behind me. I clasped my hands to stop them from shaking. 

“I might be a bitch, but I’ll also be the first one to admit that,” she said. I eyed her closely as she returned to her seat. “But you? You were better than this. When did you start turning a blind eye to crime? Tell me it wasn’t for this psychopath…” She put her gun away. “This is no longer a protest.”

She opened a document in front of me. “Article 577. An offence can be considered as an act of terror if an armed group or organisation aims to cause serious disruption to public order, or to undermine the constitutional order. Well done, you’ve ticked both. A pity it doesn’t earn you more points.”

With that, my handcuffs were back on. I watched as a different police officer took his position outside my part of the tent. As she left.

Alone, as I was, I tried to close my eyes and imagine I was somewhere else.

I was in Palawan, surrounded by sand. Water rushing to my feet. The sound of Paula laughing in the background. Sergio’s hands on my waist.

I pictured us on our boat. Cooking and laughing together. Paula jumping from it into the sea, clambering on board still wet. Mum smiling.

I could almost smell the salt air and the algae decomposing. I could taste the sun cream that had somehow made it to my lips.

A loud bang brought me back to the tent. I wasn’t sure what it was, but one of the officers on watch was smirking.

I repositioned myself. My hands were stiff, my back was sore, my wrists ached. My head was thumping loudly. It had only been a day, and what a day it had been. Just that morning they had released Rio. It hadn’t taken them long to have another one of us in their captivity. Me.

I had handed myself to them on a plate. “That’s the first place they’ll check,” Sergio had said.

Plan Epicentro had been perfect. Except for the tree I had chosen to climb. Except for my inability to carry out the plan.

I hadn’t pushed myself hard enough. I hadn’t tried hard enough. I had let myself fail.

Would I have made it if I had known I’d be caught?

_“You’re the weak link.”_

_“You’re useless.”_

_“Should have done it myself.”_

_“Just give up, Raquel.”_

I was the only gang member who had been caught during both heists. Maybe they were right. Maybe it was a good thing they didn’t know I had been caught. It saved me the humiliation. They didn’t have to waste their time trying to figure out a way to get me out.

_“I didn’t ask you to come.”_

I was just an inconvenience.

_I heard their voices. Sergio. Tokyo. Stockholm. Denver. Palermo. Although I couldn’t distinguish all their voices, I knew the whole gang was there. They were laughing, in the courtyard in Italy._

_“I made a mistake,” Sergio was saying. “But we fixed it.”_

_Alberto was with them. He was shaking Sergio’s hands. “You don’t have to worry about that coño anymore.”_

_I looked on. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak. It was then that I realised. My hands were tied above my head._

_Someone loaded a gun from behind me. I tried to turn round to look._

Bang. Metal clanking. I opened my eyes. My chin started stinging again. I had chuffed it again, this time against the handcuffs, but for a few short minutes, I was glad to see the plastic tarp, to realise that I had simply fallen asleep.

Each noise, each new thought, each trip down memory lane was making my stomach churn. It felt like someone was squeezing my head tightly. Crushing it.

But each time I closed my eyes, willing for the pain to subside, willing myself to focus on positive memories, the officers on guard clung their machine gun against a piece of metal. They loaded and unloaded it when I was looking, a grin on their faces.

They knew exactly what they were doing. I despised them for it. My nerves were shot. I was tired and felt sick.

Their tactics were working.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of the cases (and names) mentioned in this chapter are based on real events.


	9. Chapter 9

A few bangs later, Alicia was sat in front of me again. She had barely said anything. She was just staring. It felt like I was eight years old again, back in the playground playing a game, where the first one who winked lost.

She was good at it, I’d give her that. Even as she scrunched her nose, winced, and put a hand on her pregnant belly, she still maintained eye contact. “Oof. That was a good little kick.”

“How far along are you?” I asked.

“Well into the third trimester. Enough for me to be over it already. I feel like I’m about to pop.”

“You shouldn’t be here.”

“It’s a good thing you started this heist. Can you imagine me giving birth in the middle of the Algerian desert?”

“You need to sleep.”

“You mean… you need to? Have you looked at yourself lately?” she laughed. “Looks like you haven’t been getting much rest, or… is it the stress? Did the Professor use to keep you up at night? The worry about Paulita, your mum? The heist?

“It’s not good for the baby,” I retorted. “The day’s just started and you already stink of cigarettes and coffee.”

She shrugged her shoulders. “Better than the stink in here. It’s sweet that you care though. Tell me, what was it like with Paula? Imagine we’re in the waiting room at the Ob-Gyn, just two old…” She paused as if looking for the right word. “Friends? Two women who struck up a conversation.”

“I haven’t been to one in a while.” I didn’t want to delve into my memories again. I was almost scared of what new demons I’d unleash with them.

“I didn’t ask you to imagine what the doctor would say. But okay. Would a beach be a more familiar place? A beach on a paradisiacal island in South East Asia. How does that sound? I’m a tourist. You’re playing on the beach with your girl. Can you imagine that?”

“No doctor in his right mind would advise you to go travel the world in your situation.”

“I bribed him.”

I laughed. Now that was something she would do. “Sleep as much as you can before the baby gets here,” I told her. “Once it’s here you can kiss away any sleeping patterns. Not that you seem to have any. Once it’s born, ignore everything else when the kid’s asleep. In the beginning, I did the mistake of trying to get as much work done when Paula was asleep. I was soon drained and sleep deprived.”

“Fat chance of doing that with all this going on.” She gestured around her and then towards her tummy. I could see the baby stretching and moving around in her belly.

There was a time we had imagined this, albeit the situation we had envisioned was completely different.

*

It was a warm Saturday evening in June. Sunlight peeped through the blinds creating linear shadows across the room. Despite the clamminess inside the room, I felt tranquil and content. It had been a “living-life kind of day, and not mere existing” as Alicia had called it. We had put on a flimsy summer dress and had pretended we were tourists for the day. We had spent the day fooling around, drinking Sangria, and speaking broken English. We had gotten a few odd glances from older crowds but that had only made us laugh louder.

We were now sprawled on my bed, our legs entwined.

It had been a complete turnaround from yesterday. Exams and a late period had sent me back on a downward spiral. Alicia had heard me screaming from down the corridor. “Who are we going to kill?” she had asked, before closing all my books and making me promise to go to bed, buy a pregnancy test, and stop worrying for nothing. She had stayed with me until I fell asleep and was at my door at nine in the morning, urging me to get dressed.

I had abided to her wishes, even though I had spent half the night awake, unable to go back to sleep after my period cramps had woken me up.

“It’s a pity you’re not going to have a little Raquelita though,” Alicia suddenly said. 

“Were you going to look after her for me?” I asked.

“I’d be her tía. My job would be to let her do all the things you say no to.”

“Really?” I turned onto my side. “I’ll keep that in mind for when you have your own little one.”

“Never going to happen,” she said.

“Too busy raising mine?”

“Raquelita would be quiet, yet very bossy. She’ll be easy to please in certain areas, but not easy to fool. She’ll be sensitive with a flair for the dramatic, but also very level headed. Picky but with good reason.”

“Are you sure you’re not describing me?”

“I’m not sure all of those qualities can be used for you.”

“Hmm… So an angel in disguise, especially, next to your little fiend?”

“What is it with women and this need to have kids? You’ve never seen me around little pests. We don’t have a good relationship. We tend to scare each other.”

I laughed at that. Whilst I could barely imagine Alicia with a little one, I had also experienced her caring side.

“You’ll make a good mother one day, chica.”

I smiled at that.

“I can imagine you with an older kid,” I equipped.

“I’ll just steal one then. Just so I know… which age should I look for?”

“I’d say, skip the pre-teen years.”

“So what does that leave me with? A teenager? As if your rebellious side wasn’t enough.”

“I’d hardly call myself a teenager.”

“Close to one,” she said.

“Says the grown up.”

“Well, I am the more level headed one in this relationship.”

I stiffened then. I felt myself zoning out. I dismissed my feelings for her. She was a friend. A very good friend. In my head, what had gone on between us was all a bit of fun, but I suddenly became aware that I didn’t know what it meant for her. She encouraged and cautioned me when someone asked me out. She warned me to be careful. But she never said anything more.

“There’s no need to read into that. It’s just a word,” she said.

“You might be the more level headed one, but I’d say watch out for your kid. She’ll be a right daredevil, maybe even end up inside one day,” I said, changing the subject.

“My kid?” she sounded horrified, although I could see the smile she was hiding. “Shall I remind you who’s done the most reckless things lately? Maybe I’ll just skip motherhood altogether. Or just opt for a son if having a girl’s the issue.”

*

It seemed Alicia and her incessant chatter had replaced the bangs of the gun. She kept bursting in each time I was about to fall asleep. One stupid and trivial question after another. It was clear that there wasn’t much to say. Everyone was still asleep. It was just a way of passing time, and keeping me up.

“It's six in the morning,” Alicia said, slamming her hands on the table. I’m not sure whether I had been asleep or awake. Whether I had been dreaming or whether I was deep in my thoughts. My mind had gone back to my last conversation with Paula, and for a minute, I had been back in the ambulance, talking to her.

Although the lights around me were dim, I yearned to close my eyes again. My muscles ached, my body felt heavy. I felt nauseous, and Alicia wasn’t helping.

“The ambulance is in the lab, ready to be searched. In about an hour, Alberto will be there. And like a hound... he will track down the scent of his new prey. Your sweet daughter.”

“Do you think I left her address hanging on the fridge with a magnet?” 

“I think you're a guilty mother,” she said. “Come on. You wouldn't just leave, do your little heist for a week and not make one phone call. Right? And what about your bad daughter complex? Because your mother... Oof! You can't leave her alone, not even to eat a Popsicle. How'd you do it? In the ambulance with the Professor... How did you call them?”

“We've already thought about all this. Surprising, I know. So you can send Alberto like a dog looking for a bone, but you know you'll find nothing.”

Alicia liked the sound of her own voice, especially in the interrogation room. In real life, amongst friends, she was a good listener. She used to listen to me for hours on end. Her eyes fixed on me, giving me all her attention. And I knew she wasn’t simply pretending. She would ask the right questions, and come up with the best and most daring of solutions. So, I let her talk. I took that moment to switch off for a bit. I tried to ignore her little jibes about my mum.

My sweet mum. I missed her.

There were times when the illness took over. Days when the fears that had washed over me when the doctor had first given me the news were realised. Days that she was back to her normal, carefree self.

I hoped the recent move hadn’t unsettled her. When I had asked her doctor for things that could aggravate her illness, I was told that stress and changes in routine and environment could speed Alzheimer’s decline. And because of me and the heist, she had been forced to move yet again.

I had seen how it had affected her after the first move. I knew the doctor had been right. When we had first moved to Palawan, her health had deteriorated. It had been a roller-coaster ride.

*

The banging of pots at 4am woke me up. I opened my eyes and listened. For a few minutes, I sat in silence. I couldn’t move. Different possibilities entered my head. A burglary. Interpol.

Paula.

I got out of bed and tiptoed towards the noise. As I reached the corridor, I heard humming coming from the kitchen. My racing heart instantly calmed down upon hearing mum’s soothing voice. It was a song she used to sing to Laura and me when we were younger.

“A la nanita nana, nanita ea, nanita ea,  
Mi niña tiene sueño, bendito sea, bendito sea.”

“Mamá, what are you doing?” I looked around me. Many of the kitchen cupboards were open. She had clearly struggled to find the items she needed. On the kitchen table, there were two plates with pan con tomate. There was a bowl full of leftover tomato pulp. A grater in the washbasin.

She barely looked at me as she squeezed some oranges. “Shh, you’ll wake the little ones.”

“Mamá, it’s four in the morning. Why aren’t you in bed?”

It was only then that she turned round. I could see the fear in her eyes. I saw how she scanned the kitchen counter as if looking for something. “What are you doing in my house?” she shouted. She opened the drawers and took out a wooden spoon.

“Mamá, it’s me. Raquel.”

“What do you want?”

I stuttered to say anything that made sense. I tried to reach out to her as she waved the spoon in front of her. I was thankful she hadn’t grabbed one of the knives in the rack. It was the first incident of the sort, and I had no clue what to do.

“Is… everything okay?” Sergio’s voice eased some of my tension. I glanced at him, begging for help. I noticed how he scratched his head and fixed his glasses. “Erm… It’s still too early for breakfast, no?”

The look on her face changed when she saw him. Although she was still wary of me, I noticed how she had relaxed. She no longer held the spoon in front of her. It was almost as though she recognised him. I wondered who she thought he was.

“Raquel and Laura need to be up for school,” she explained.

He nodded and looked at the clock on the wall. “You know how grumpy Raquel gets when she’s woken up too early,” he said, a warm smile on his face. Lately, I had reverted to my younger self; catching up on all the sleep I had missed due to work, and I despised waking up early for no valid reason. “Maybe we can let them sleep a bit more.”

I looked at her, taking it all in. “Ah sí,” she said.

“Maybe we should go rest our legs a bit more, too,” he suggested. I let him take over. I just looked on. I felt like a child, scared, sad, and unsure what to do.

“Well, I do feel quite tired… But Laura won’t drink her oranges if they’re not strained. And,” she looked around her, “I couldn’t find the juice strainer.”

He took a few steps closer to her, gently took the wooden spoon out of her hands, and put an arm around her shoulders. “Don’t worry. I’ll do that myself.”

She nodded and let him walk her out of the kitchen. “It should be in one of those cupboards.”

I was still staring in space when Sergio returned. I didn’t even notice he was standing behind me. Not until his hands were on my waist and his lips nuzzled my neck. “She’ll be better tomorrow,” he reassured me. It was only then that I let my tears flow. 

*

I felt guilty. I wished I could protect her and Paula from this whole mess.

Although uprooting them was unavoidable, I had tried to keep what was going on from my mum. I put on a brave face and lied. I knew the dangers that came with this heist. I knew the risks.

In the Philippines, it was easier to lie than in Madrid. After the first heist, it had been impossible to lie about Sergio’s real identity. We were the first names you heard of when switching on the television in the morning and the last thing you heard about at night. Despite knowing he was the man behind the heist, and part of the reason for my resignation and teary eyes, she had still kept asking about him, saying he was a “good one”.

As much as I tried to hide what we were about to do, I knew that on her best days, she wasn’t easy to fool. She hadn’t said anything to me but I knew she had recognised Tokyo. I had seen her eyeing her as if trying to recall where she had seen her face. That day, she had been more quiet than usual, her laugh wasn’t as loud, and her eyes didn’t have their normal shine. She was deep in thought. It had taken her a day, and then, suddenly, her smile reached her eyes again.

I had seen her approach Tokyo and put a hand over hers. “She’ll do everything she can to help you,” she had told her. It was before I had even told her anything about moving away. I had wondered whether she had heard us talking, whether she knew why Tokyo was there, or if she had simply noticed the forlorn look on Tokyo’s face. I was still unsure on what we were going to do or what we could do to help, but it was clear she knew me better than anyone else did, possibly even better than I knew myself.


	10. Chapter 10

Alicia was still going on. This time she was going on about their technologies, about luminol and ultraviolet light. Going on about hairs and socks. Useless things, wasting time. None of those items were of any use to them. They already knew who was behind this heist, and none of us were denying it.

“And then... bang!” she said.

I jumped in my chair. I kicked myself for it but instantly pretended the noise hadn’t sent my heart racing.

“Got you. I'll repeat my offer. I go in there right now and disappear with the hair that would take us to your mother and daughter, or we wait for your ex... and you're fucked.”

“You have nothing,” I said, putting on a brave face. It would have made more sense for Alicia to mention plans, notes we had jotted down and the technology we had used, even though we had been careful with them. Those were the things they were after. It was what she wanted from me. To find out what was going to happen next, what we were doing inside the bank, to find a way to go in and get to the others, to find the Professor, but she knew it was unlikely they’d find anything. Her words had only made it clearer that she was only doing this to get to me. The only way they’d get them was if they gained access to my mind, and they could only do that if they managed to break me. “You're threatening me with ‘maybe we're going to find something.’”

I suddenly got this urgent need to laugh. It sounded loud and exaggerated, and I didn’t know where it had come from. I tried to gain an element of control. I noted how as I had leaned forward, she moved back in her chair and fixed her hair. I focused on that.

“You know what’s happening?” I continued. “Your pregnancy has you so high on oestrogen that you've become the most optimistic woman in Spain. Try not to waste all those hormones. You'll need them for delivery because it fucking hurts.”

A few minutes, or hours, ago, we had talked about children, so I tried to switch back to that. “What are you going to do when it comes out?” I asked. I was genuinely interested, but as she stared back at me, it almost felt like the roles had changed. “Is it a boy or girl? You don't know? Poor little child.” It almost felt like I was the one interrogating her, but I knew she was merely playing a game, and I could only play along.

She kept quiet. It was as though we were at a game of poker. We were constantly studying each other. Considering the lack of sleep and the heightened emotional reactivity, I wasn’t sure if I could trust my instincts. Her silence. The unwavering gaze. That unflinching look. They all seemed to mask some deep pain. 

With no further exchange of words, Alicia plastered a fake smile on her lips, and was soon up on her feet, quietly making her way out of the tent. I took it as a win, but my mind was also in overdrive, obsessing over that look, and what it was all about; part of me told me that I was being irrational, another that I was right.

All the talk about babies, took me back in time. I heard the little thuds coming from the Doppler as the midwife checked on Paula’s heartbeat. I felt Alberto’s hands on my shoulders. I was back in that hospital room.

*

I was shaking. I couldn’t stop shaking.

“The head is right there,” the nurse said.

I couldn’t say anything. I just held on to the tears and tried to hold them in, until another wave of pain washed over my body.

“You’re doing well,” Alberto said, wiping away my tears.

“Are you ready?” the doctor said.

I just nodded. “It’s just the nerves,” I whispered as more tears made their way down my face.

“Mi hija you’ll be fine. You’ll soon be hugging your little querido,” mum said. Although I couldn’t see her, knowing she was close by helped. I had insisted on her presence. I wanted her there just in case something went wrong or I needed her assistance.

“Big breath in, hold it and push.”

Alberto caressed my upper arm. A nurse held my other hand. Someone else counted.

It was all a blur. A mixture of emotions. Thirty-one long hours.

At one point, I bit my mouth as I tried to ride through a contraction. I screamed and even shouted at Alberto and the doctor when they told me to push. My lower back and rectum felt like they were about to explode. My leg muscles felt like they were about to implode.

Towards the end, my mum had replaced the nurse, and she was there by my side. Her hand holding my head. “You’re soon done,” she repeated. “She’s almost here.”

And finally, I heard her. The sweetest cry. Loud and piercing. The sound of an angel. Little Paulita was here.

Alberto kissed me gently. “You did it, cariño. You did so good. Mis niñas. I’m so proud, my love.”

He was sweet back then. He was supportive and I couldn’t love him more. I thought I had found my happy ever after.

*

Nothing could have prepared me for the horrible twist life took a few years later. How the person who had promised would always protect us was the same person I yearned for someone to protect me from. How I was grateful my dad wasn’t there to see me reduced into a punch bag, but how I also wished he was still alive. I knew he would have known what to do. I knew he would have fought any officers who dared side with Alberto.

There were times when I would lie down in bed with Paula, hug her close to me, and almost feel jealous of her. I wished I was still as young as her, still as innocent, still at a time when a kiss and a hug from my parents would make me feel better. Instead, there was a time when I couldn’t even get that. My mother had been too far away.

At that moment, I wasn’t sure whether or not I was happy that the partition in the tent was made of clear plastic. I saw him; talking to Tamayo and Alicia. This wasn’t his field. He didn’t have to be here, unless he had found something and couldn’t wait for it to be handed in. I tried to read their expressions, but it was difficult to do. The one thing that was clear was that Alicia was back to her usual self. She was fooling around, waving her arms around.

The first thing I saw when Alicia made her way to me was the burnt SIM card. I had been careful. I had seen the whole thing go up in flames, so I didn’t know how it could be of substantial use.

Or at least, that’s what I thought before Alicia spoke. “They're in Mindanao.”

I looked up. My actions had led them to them. I suddenly felt woozy. Weak. Nauseated.

“In 24 hours, we'll have them. You know how this goes. Paula comes here, you're declared guilty of abducting your own child, you lose your custody, and she goes to live with her father.”

She pointed to him, and I couldn’t help but look. I watched him leave. I was glad I didn’t have to face him, but I mentally kicked myself for having handed that kind of information to him. I didn’t know how it had happened, but it was yet another failure on my part.

“So you're here to tell me I'm fucked? I already know that.” I tried to stop my lips from trembling as I spoke.

Alicia didn’t seem as happy as I would have expected her to be. She was sombre and vigilant. She sat on the desk in front of me. She put her phone close to me, within my grasp. “It depends. I'll let you call them. Right here. Right now. And you can lead them to safety.” My eyes went from the phone to her. “When we get to your hideout in Mindanao, they'll be gone. We fucked up. The thought of Paula being with that bastard Alberto doesn't thrill me either.”

She made it sound as though she knew what life had been like. In reality, all she had was what I’d said, the reports I had made about Alberto, the titbits of information I had given, and court transcripts from Paula’s custody battle. She made it sound as though she knew Paula, but she had only seen her once; back when Paula was only two. We had both been waiting for a table at a restaurant. It had been ages since we had last met. She was with her husband, Germán. I was with Alberto and Paula. She was the one who had started the conversation, who had asked the waiter to join our tables. She had her eyes on Alberto the whole time, but things were still relatively fine between us. She had gushed over Paula who had rewarded her with a couple of shy smiles before hiding in my hair.

She moved and took a seat in front of me.

“What's Paula doing right now?” she asked. “Go on. Close your eyes. Picture her. Tucked in bed. Her hair across the blanket. You can almost smell her. Close your eyes. Picture her. Go on.” She closed her eyes and painted a smile on her face.

I didn’t have to close my eyes to see Paula, to hear her innocent warm laugh, to smell the jasmine scented soap we used to wash her hair.

“What are you doing, Alicia?”

“It's only a five-year wait, and then you'll be reunited again. She comes running to you. ‘Mama!’ She hugs you like this, curled up around you, with her arms and legs like a little monkey. And you press her against your chest... and grab her little face... to look at her. But she won't let you go.”

I wanted to slap her, to shout at her, to scream, do something to make her stop. But her words were starting to fade away, and all I could see was my little girl. Alicia’s voice was in the background. I had Paula in front of me. She hadn’t aged. I was in another room, metal bars behind me. I could feel the warmth of her body on mine. Her arms hugging me tightly. My tears falling onto her hair and hers wetting my top.

“She repeats over and over, like a prayer that will save her from evil, ‘Mama, don't leave me. Mama, don't leave me. Mamá, no me dejes. Mamá, no me dejes. Mamá, no me dejes. Mamá, no me dejes.’”

I heard Paula uttering those words.

And suddenly I was pulled away from her. My hands were in handcuffs. I saw her drifting away.

“Raquel. I know you love him.” I was back in the tent. “And he loves you too, and because of that... what do you think he would tell you to do?” I couldn’t stop myself from shaking. “Did I offer you five years in prison? I’ll trade it for five minutes.” She pulled out some papers and tore them in front of me. “I'm offering you freedom. Sergio goes to jail, but you go free. Your arrest was never official. You call them, get them to safety. In 24 hours, you'll all be together. We'll never come after you. Everything will be over.”

It felt like there was a whirlwind inside my head. I couldn’t think. It wasn’t just about me. It was about Paula. It was about my mother. They were innocent victims. I wanted to trust her. I wanted to plead to her, to talk to my old friend, not the inspector, to ask her for advice. My hands were trembling as I reached for the phone. As I slowly typed and deleted each number.

Mobile in hand, I wanted to call Sergio to tell him I was alive, to tell him they knew about Mindanao, to tell him they were after my family. Yet, I knew I’d be caught.

Alicia had sounded so sincere, but I knew their tricks. She had made her way to the partition in the tent. I looked out and caught a group of officers looking in, their eyes on me. They were huddled close to a computer.

Calling them would give them the exact location of where they were. Was Alberto waiting on a plane, waiting for the address? Were the police there waiting for directions? Even if I called, they wouldn’t have enough time to run, let alone contact Sergio and seek another safe house.

Papers being ripped to shreds meant nothing. They could have been anything. They could easily be printed again.

Although this was the only way I could let anyone know I was alive, it was also a risk I wasn’t willing to take. Even if Sergio could do nothing to help them, I knew Alberto wouldn’t let them hurt Paula. He might have used her as pawn to hurt me in the past, but I also knew he loved her and would seek to protect her. For once, I hoped he and my sister were still together and doing well. Their relationship could also be enough to protect my mother from any harm. 

“Better?” Alicia said, as if my face and trembling hands weren’t a clear indication of how I was feeling.

I put the phone down, lest temptation took over, and just nodded.

Her smile soon washed away. Disappointment coloured her face as she studied me. I lowered my eyes. I couldn’t look at her. I had come so close to breaking, and I was scared to think of what they would do next.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To anyone who's still reading this story, I hope you're still enjoying it.  
> To those who have sent kudos and comments, THANK YOU!!! Your words and kudos mean the world to me.

This was it.

If there was ever a time when I thought having lived and breathed the police force would make me feel more prepared for an interrogation, I was wrong. It certainly was not the case in this situation. Not now.

The tears had ceased. My walls were back up. There was nothing I could do; except for soldiering on, and the one way of doing it was to keep it together and to stop them from gaining control of my mind. I owed it to myself.

Alicia’s musky fragrance made its way to my lungs, but this time, her smell was accompanied with another; a mixture of tobacco and sweat. Tamayo had joined Alicia. He didn’t say a word. He walked to the corner of the tent, arms folded in front of him. His eyes never leaving me, like a coyote waiting for the right moment to jump.

She slurped some coffee before setting up the space in front of her. I had grown accustomed to seeing her gun in front of me, always at the ready, a reminder of who was in power. I eyed the recorder on the table in front of me. I wasn’t sure what it meant. I didn’t know if this was them finally following protocols. Whether it was them giving me one final chance to surrender, to give them what they wanted. Whether this was one last move before they washed their hands off me. Whether it was them giving up on me.

“Okay. All set for your statement,” Alicia said. “Go ahead.”

“I do have a question before we get started. I don’t know if it’s relevant, but... I’ve been thinking about it a lot and wanted to ask you, Alicia.”

In a weird way, seeing Tamayo in that room lit a fire in me. Rage, power, courage, strength. His goading looks encouraged me. He reminded me of the reason I had let myself be swayed in favour of Sergio’s cause. That look reminded me of Alberto, of old co-workers who abused of their power and male privilege.

“Fire away,” she replied.

“What's it like when you go home? I mean, you get home from work after torturing a kid like Rio, who you’ve made stand for days in a cell that's smaller than a closet, shitting and pissing himself. Then you go home... to Germán. That’s what I wanted to ask,” I told her. Alicia had always been reckless, but Rio’s story repulsed me. He was barely out of his teens. He had experienced horrors no one should ever go through. “You don’t mind that they call you a torturer in the press. But Germán...” I wondered if he knew about it before it was released to the press, what he had said. “Because Germán is a really good person, what does he say when you go home? Does he ask you, ‘How was your day, honey?’ Do you kiss him and... you hug him? What then? Does he hug you? Kiss you? Do you fuck? Because I think you make him sick.”

I had been waiting for her to stop me. Instead, she just smiled. A smile full of anguish. A hint of defeat. Silence.

Her posture changed as she picked up the recorder, switched it off and put it in her pocket.

“See, the truth... Well, It's been about two months since Germán hugged me. Since he hugged me, since he kissed me, or made love to me. To be precise, not since I cremated him.”

The spark that had lit within me as I took control sizzled for one last time before it was doused. That fire burnt out with that last phrase.

“They pulled a white sheet over his face, they rolled him down to the morgue in the hospital, and that’s where the hugging stopped.”

“Alicia, what are you doing?” Tamayo asked.

“He's dead,” she said. It wasn’t what I wanted to hear. It wasn’t what I expected to hear. “Cancer... of the pancreas. The kind where they tell you, you have two months, and it is two months. I was getting fat. He was thin. I was pink, and he was yellow. It consumed him. Life grew inside me, and death grew in him. But I guess that's cancer. Do you know the last thing he said to me? Can you believe his last words were, ‘Turn on the news?’” She laughed. “I thought he was going to give me one of those speeches of his because you know he was really eloquent, and he was really creative, too. And he said, "Turn on the news." Turn on the news! I mean, he was full of morphine, of course, so I guess that was affecting him. That was it.”

For a minute, it felt like we were back at some coffee house. Just two friends; just us two. Everything and everyone else had vanished. She was simply pouring her heart out to me, and I could feel her pain. Yet, nothing could have prepared me for that confession. Tamayo, the gun and my handcuffs were a reminder of how time had passed; how we were no longer the same two people we knew. The years that had passed made the current situation harder, but I also knew that even if things weren’t as they were, nothing I could say or do could ease her pain. I leaned forward and put a hand on top of hers.

She looked at me then. Realisation of where we were sinking in. She pulled her hand back and her “I don’t want your pity” face took over.

“Lo siento mucho,” I said.

I studied the look on Tamayo’s face. He too had been taken aback by this news. “Alicia, can we go outside for a moment?”

“Sí. Voy.”

I wished I was more like her, that I didn’t feel somewhat responsible for digging this up, that I didn’t feel somewhat guilty. I had to remind myself that it wasn’t me that had killed him. She was able to hold pain so much better. She compartmentalised. She didn’t stew over things that had been said, things that occurred. She could never understand why I used to let one word hold so much power over me, how hours later I was still thinking about something I had said or something that had happened to someone else. I had learnt not to let it show. Over time, it had gotten better. I had to learn how to switch off, especially with my job. Yet, here I was mulling over her words, feeling bad for bringing him up.

But, now, it made sense. As wrong as it was, Rio had served as her punching bag. Her pent up anger went into his torture. Germán's death had desensitised her. She was numb. She was just what they needed, and the case was the escapism she desired. Whilst she was in the middle of nowhere, tormenting a poor kid, Germán was easily pushed to the back of her mind. It was so typical of her.

As Alicia battled with her emotions, and Tamayo had it out with her, my mind went back to the first time I met Germán. To a cold night in the beginning of one particular January.

*

With a drink in hand and my purse underneath my armpit, I scanned the room, looking for my own colleagues. This was meant to be a late Christmas party, and yet, Alberto and his team wouldn’t stop talking about work.

I don’t know if it was my silence, my wondering gaze, or how quickly I had downed my drink that gave away how disinterested I was. “I heard you’re doing a Masters,” one of his colleagues said.

“Yes,” I nodded. “I’m finally in my last year.” I had never envisaged spending all of my 20s studying, and yet, I had found myself going from one course to another.

“What is it about?”

It was then that I saw her. Her long orange hair hanging loose on her shoulders. She was laughing, a glass of wine in her hand.

I turned back to look at Alberto’s friend. Alberto had introduced me to them but I’d already forgotten his name. “Criminal psychology,” I said. From the corner of my eye, I could see that she, too, had spotted me.

“Alicia’s here,” I whispered to Alberto. I hadn’t spoken to her in years and I wasn’t quite looking forward to an awkward encounter.

“Didn’t you use to be friends?” he asked, as she started walking towards us.

“Yes. Used to. Past tense.”

I attempted to give her my back, to hide away, to make myself look busy.

“Raquel.” Her voice was loud and cheery. “Tanto tiempo sin verte.”

I painted a smile on my face and turned round to greet her. “Alicia?”

She leaned in for a hug and a kiss. I wondered how drunk she was. Alicia had never been one for hugs.

“Fancy us meeting here,” she said.

“It’s not like it’s a police party or anything of the sort.”

“You’re right, you’re right,” she laughed.

“Ignore her,” the man beside her told me. “She’s already drunk.”

My eyes must have nearly popped out of my sockets. “You’re going to ruin my reputation,” Alicia told him, smacking him on his arm. “Raquel, meet Germán.”

“Mucho gusto,” he said. I smiled and shook his hands.

“Nothing much’s changed here, then,” she said pointing to Alberto, who hadn’t even bothered to greet her. I didn’t feel like going into how Alberto and I had only recently rekindled our relationship after two years apart.

“It’s good to see that your heart has finally thawed enough to let a man in,” I told her.

“A lot can change in four years.”

I nodded, but instead focused my attention on the glass in my hands; on the way the yellowish liquid caught the light above our heads; the way it glistened until there was nothing left.

I watched as they whispered in each other’s ears, as Alicia leaned onto Germán, resting her chin on his shoulder. I realised then that I had never seen her so loved up. He smiled as his eyes veered to the band playing in front of us.

“Do you want another drink, Raquel?” Germán asked.

I politely declined.

“Oh get her another. Wine, was it?”

I nodded.

“Un Airen, idealmente de La Mancha, ¿sí?” She grinned.

“Por supuesto,” I laughed, as I reminisced about one particular day back when we were still close friends.

**

We had gone to a party the night before and I had crashed at hers. The lack of sleep due to work and my undergraduate course, plus all the shots I had drunk had gotten to me. Alicia had ended up looking after me, as was often the case when we went out together. It seemed like she relished getting me drunk, for it meant she had another hilarious story that she could hold over me. Not that I was going to complain.

When the alarm had gone off at half past five in the morning, I was still somewhat drunk. I groaned and went back to sleep. Alicia must have switched it off. 45 minutes later, I was still in bed. It was only then that I attempted to open my eyes. The bright red figures on Alicia’s bedside clock jolted me to my senses. I had a shift at seven. I quickly jumped out of bed and instantly regretted it.

“You’re not going in to work, are you?” Alicia groggily said.

“I have to.”

“Just go back to sleep. You’ll be a liability after yesterday.”

“I can hardly ask for a day off now.”

“Just call in sick.”

I looked around the room in the darkness.

“What are you doing you idiot?” Alicia asked, sitting up.

“Where are my pants?”

“Raquel, when was the last time you took a day off or called in sick?”

I was reserving my time off for exam season, or for an emergency. I hated ringing in sick when I wasn’t dying in bed.

“It’s not right.”

“No one will thank you for it.” She looked for my phone, dialled a number and handed it to me. “It’s already ringing.”

After that, we had slept for four more hours, then took a train out of Madrid to La Mancha and visited a vineyard in the middle of nowhere. We spent the day laughing and drinking more alcohol. We didn’t see the time go by. The sun had long since set when we finally looked at our watches and realised we were going to miss the last train back. We ended up running back to the train station with a wine bottle – an Airen – in our hands, in the middle of a storm. We were drunk, completely drenched, and I ended up catching a cold, but it was totally worth it.

**

“Still as crazy?” I asked. The noise in the hall was getting louder. Each year, I always surprised myself by how many officers couldn’t hold their drink. The room was already filling with raucous laughter, and it had only been an hour since most people had started arriving.

“Worse,” Alicia said.

“Poor Germán.”

“You don’t even know him.”

“I know _you_ though.”

She nodded. “He’s good to me. Maybe having a family isn’t as overrated.”

It was only then that I spotted her ring. “You got married?!”

“Oh, tone it down, Murillo.”

“I never thought I’d say this, but it suits you,” I told her. Although I couldn’t imagine Alicia being tied to anyone, she looked genuinely happy. Ever since we had argued about work, since her promotion, since we had changed districts and offices, our friendship had withered to nothing. We had lost contact. Instead, it had felt like we had gone back to the first year and a half at the Academy. Her name sometimes came up at work. There were work emails that had her name on them. However, contact between us had ceased. I knew she was doing well for herself, but that was where it ended.

“What about you two?”

It was only then that Alberto turned round, flashing her a grin. I felt his hands around my waist.

“Alicia, nice seeing you again.”

“Never thought I’d hear you say that, Vicuña.”

“I’m tired of hearing about this case, and you must be, too,” he whispered. “Do you want to head off?”

“Everything okay?” I asked.

He nodded.

“You’re not running away from me, are you?” Alicia said as Germán returned with the drinks. “Besides, it’d be rude to leave when your glass is still full.”

Alberto smiled and agreed. He sparked a conversation with Germán. Although they had only just met, their conversation flowed better than mine and Alicia’s. Instead, I ended up listening to what they were saying; interjecting when there was something I disagreed with. I noticed then what it was that attracted Alicia to Germán. He was clever and well read. He was eloquent and charming. I noticed the look on her face as she listened to him talk. She listened attentively, a smile that reached her eyes. I had only seen that look on her face once before.

It was they who decided we should go out again the week after, and I could only nod my head in agreement.

*

It had always been clear that Germán had stolen Alicia’s heart. Even in his death, her heart still belonged to him.

From my section of the tent, I watched on as Tamayo listened to what Alicia had to say. Her confession probably hadn’t gone down well. I watched as she dismissed them and sent them back to work, as she went to her computer, and ate her candy in silence. I watched as Tamayo answered the phone and looked around before replying, as Alicia and Angél approached him, as Tamayo left the tent and she slammed the table in front of her. I watched as she went back to her computer, drank her drink and talked to the people at that station. I watched as she made her way towards me. 

“What’s the score?” she asked.

What was she talking about?

“You’re not keeping track? I’m surprised... I’ll congratulate you though. I’ll give you that. A few days and you got me talking. Two months I had kept it bottled...” She paused. “No one knew or questioned me. Maybe those years studying and serving served to something, after all. Halting your own interrogation like that.” Her anger was apparent in the way she held herself. She hadn’t even bothered to sit down. She rested her hands on the table instead. She lowered her face so that it was close to mine. Her nose nearly touched the tip of mine. “Now, how about you give me something? What do you think will happen to you if your new mates scarper off the face of the planet again?”

I remained quiet. What was there to say?

“You don’t know?” She laughed. “Funny that, cause neither do I. But they could do anything. And I know a few people who would fight to get first dibs if this heist ends like the last one. The only person who supposedly knows what has happened to you is your boyfriend. Only, he doesn’t, does he? Not really. And there are still no reports on your arrest. If a few months down the line, someone was to find you with a bunch of bruises on your face… Well, they’ll just find someone to blame. Maybe they’ll blame the professor and say you were just a bargaining tool, that you were his hostage and you weren’t really a traitor, or maybe they’ll blame el puta loca,” she said, pointing to herself. “After all, the crazy ones are always the ones to blame.”

She paced round the room before pausing back in front of me.

“Joder, Raquel. Just give me something.”


	12. Chapter 12

It was a sequence of coming and going, of me trying to read what was going on on the other side of the plastic partition.

Alicia chewed on some peanuts as she made her way back through the plastic curtain. “Earlier, you asked me if my husband was too disgusted to sleep with me, and I didn't answer,” she said. “Well, no. I didn't disgust him. Because I wasn't a bitch back then.”

She leaned on the table, her face closer to mine. A whiff of coffee, caramel and vanilla made its way to my nostrils. My tummy grumbled, my stomach churned. It had been a few hours since I had last eaten anything.

“But now I guess I am.”

She looked deep into my eyes. I could feel her gaze burning into my skull. Those long hard looks told me how my words had launched something new within her. There was a bitterness, an icy hostility. 

“And yeah, we had sex. We did it everywhere. And it's fascinating how creative we were. I imagine you and the Professor are more like a once a month kind of couple, right? And always missionary. Money can't buy it all.”

Her eyes still didn’t leave mine. They were still looking, still searching. And although it felt as though she was trying to devour the truth and all that was keeping me sane, as I stared back I noticed all the pain that lingered there. Her gaze no longer felt threatening then.

“All that poison inside of you is eating you away, Alicia. I can see it in your face.”

She looked at herself on her phone. “What's wrong? My face?”

“You're not yourself. All this talk about sex. What's wrong? Is it the hormones? I don't know. Download an app. There are millions of perverts who'd like to fuck a pregnant lady.”

“I prefer getting to know the other person. I don't date the first geek that I meet at a bar that gives me his phone and says... ‘Hey, guapa. Why don't you come with me to my warehouse and taste my cider? It's really tasty.’”

Her voice, her imitation of Sergio, grated on me. If it weren’t for the handcuffs I would have sworn we had gone back in time. I was no longer sure this was an interrogation.

“You know what your problem is?” I told her.

“Tell me.”

“If your mask crumbles, everything else does. You're a step away from a breakdown. And I get it. I get –”

I didn’t see it coming, until she pulled me out of my chair. Her hand grasping my ear, holding me closer. I could see I had hit a nerve.

“I'm not the one with a mask on. Let's see. Earlier, hmm, the two of us had a deal. You were holding the phone, and then you changed your mind. What happened? Do you really think you’re saving anyone by staying quiet?”

“I made you waste your time while you were questioning me. I pretended you were breaking me, little by little, and that I was about to give in,” I said.

She chuckled. “Pretended? I can see the fear in your eyes, you’re trying to hold yourself together but you know you’re fucked. Your plan went to pieces. Nothing prepared you for this. Now what? What’s the next step?”

I pursed my lips, attempting a smile. She was right. Checkmate seemed imminent, but I wasn’t about to give in just yet.

“I’ll ask you again. Give me something. Anything. Something inconsequential. Something I can play with, that is part of your plan, which we don’t yet know.” Her gaze had softened. The stony glare had vanished. “Raquel, you’re not stupid, you know what can happen if you don’t at least attempt to play this game.”

“Is there really a guarantee that nothing will happen if I give you information? That I won’t be signing more people’s lives into your hands? That what happened to Rio won’t happen again?”

“What about the rest of the people in this country?” Alicia asked. “Maybe we’ve kept you in the dark for too long, but I’ll let you in on a little secret.” She looked around and lowered her voice. “Your Professor… he went bonkers when he found out you had died.”

I kept quiet. I knew there was more she wanted to tell me. I focused on the smile on her face, on the lipstick that had faded in the middle. It was better than paying attention to Sergio’s voice playing in my head.

_“Get out of there. Tell him. Sal de ah_ _í.”_

It was better than listening to Sergio’s cries again, the chilling gasp that had escaped his lips and made its way to my ears, the silence that had ensued as the gun went off for the second time in that barn.

“But then again, what did you expect will happen when you trust a group of criminals with missiles?”

“They wouldn’t fire them without a reason.”

“Are you sure?”

“Sí.” I was certain of it. They would only fire them if they felt truly threatened, and even then, they were only to be used in an extreme situation. They were weapons none of us wanted to ever have to use.

“Tell me, would you kill for love?” she said. “Actually, no, don’t answer that... You’d rather give yourself up, than have to pull the trigger. You’d wound someone for a person you love, but not kill – not purposely. Tell me I’m wrong.”

I had always hated firing shots, both at the Academy and on the job. Some found it liberating and empowering. I, on the other hand, despised it. I knew the effect one single shot could have, and how it could change lives. I had seen fingers squeezing the trigger a second too soon, and the world deafening. I had seen time slow down as soon as the bullet left the barrel, bodies thumping to the ground on impact. It was a powerful cold piece of metal that allowed some to feel invincible and play god. It gave them the power to sniff out lives as easily as snapping your fingers. At the Academy, there was a time when I would start shaking each time we had firearm training. It made the gun recoil stronger. Even years later, there were still times I flinched upon shooting, even if I was shooting blankly. 

“Your Professor, on the other hand, seemed eager to avenge your death… or perhaps he wanted something to occupy his thoughts. Maybe he’s more like _me_ , than you.” She paused. I was suddenly sharing her attention with the remaining peanuts in her hand. She shelled one and ate its contents. “You know, if it wasn’t for this heist, you could have introduced me to him over tea or coffee. Tell me, what kind of person is he? A no-sugar kind of guy, a coffee with milk person?”

I held her gaze before answering. It was my turn to try to infiltrate her head. I needed to know what was going on in there, how she found it so easy to switch, from cold and demeaning to being friendly and trivial.

“You were going to storm the place,” I calmly said.

“We were?”

“There are plans waiting to be put into action. He wouldn’t just act on impulse. Besides, he’s not the only one in control.”

“You are talking about a master criminal.”

“And yet, you were the ones who were about to put innocent lives at risk.”

“So what do you suggest? Complete anarchy? Let me take you back to when you were eight, running in the playground, children screaming around you, a group of children pretending to be coppers. What was their role in the game? To catch the thieves, no? You seem to have forgotten that it’s what you used to do a couple of years ago, too. Interrogations, arrests. Normal, no?”

“It’s only normal when protocols are followed. I don’t condone the use of black sites or intimidation to get what you want. You should know.”

“Protocols?” Alicia laughed. “Tell me you’re not already experiencing a slight dip in memory. When was letting fugitives escape part of following protocol, or running away after them?”

“When I realised that I was just working for the biggest group of mafia. The state. Its institutions. The police force.”

“And suddenly everything was okay? You were ready to don those red robes and scream fuck the police, abolish the government and its rules?” she asked. “‘On my honour, I will never betray my integrity, my character or the public trust.’ Remember those words? Well, perhaps you don’t, considering we had a flask full of tequila hidden in our pockets.”

I tried to ignore that memory, her attempt to throw me off. We had met before our Academy’s graduation for a pre-graduation party. The Commandant and Police Commissioner had paused as they walked in front of us; the strong smell of mint in our mouths gave the game away. “‘I will always have the courage to hold myself and others accountable for our actions. I will always maintain the highest ethical standards and uphold the values of my community,’” I said. “Shall I continue? What’s ethical about torture? Are you holding yourself accountable for any of that? For the way you’re breaking human rights laws right now? For not following the Reding Rights?”

“Bueno. So what would you suggest? Did leaving the force do you any good? Did it change things for you?”

“I don’t know what the situation’s currently like outside, but the last time I was out there, it seemed like we weren’t the only ones protesting.”

“What about _you_? Do you think any of them are coming to save you? I swear you’re your own worst enemy. Stop playing martyr, Raquel.” She leaned closer and lowered her volume. “I’m trying to help you here. Look around you. Do you see anyone else doing that?” She got up. I rolled my eyes and shook my head as her eyes ventured around the room, as she peered under the table. “Just so you know the clock’s ticking. You don’t have much time.”

It wasn’t long after Alicia had left the room that I noticed a change in the tent. Everyone had stopped working. All eyes were on the monitors at the front of the room. From the limited visibility I had, I could see police officers getting ready for an attack; I could see a group of people in the midst of it. I wasn’t sure how many of them there were; two, four, more? They had everyone’s attention. From my side of the tent, I had no idea who they were.

I noticed how everything and everyone seemed to pause; the attack; the activity in the tent. Everyone, but that group of people. They marched onwards, holding something in their hands. A box. A rectangular box. It wasn’t clear what it was.

Everyone in the tent was suddenly standing up.

“Qué pasa?” I whispered, standing up, trying to make my way out of my part of the tent. “Qué esta pasando? What's happening?”

I felt someone’s hands on me, but all my attention was on the screens in front of me.

“Get her back inside!” I heard Tamayo shout.

“Let her. Out of respect,” Alicia said.

No one said anything else. My body was acting of its own accord. My eyes went from one screen to the next, taking it all in. Police everywhere, barricades, and assault rifles pointed at the Bank. The people congregated outside, banners, red robes, the Dalí masks. Six people wearing suits and black sunglasses. A box. My blood ran cold. A chill took over my body. A coffin.

Someone had died.

My eyes went from one screen to the next, trying to decipher who it was. If it was just a trick.

“Nairobi. 1986/2019. La Puta Ama.” The words were penned down on the side of the box. Everything around me had stilled. This time I couldn’t stop my tears. I wanted to believe that it wasn’t real. That it was a trick. That it was empty, full of explosives, gold. Anything but a body. Her loud voice played in my head. Her laugh. Her energy and enthusiasm. The dreams that had died with her. Her kind nature.

As Angél put his hand on my shoulder, I felt myself breaking. I leaned onto him as I sobbed.

I knew then that this was the beginning of the end. Sergio was right to feel insecure and unsure about this heist. I had quelled his fears, accused him of being an egomaniac but, at that moment, I wondered how many of us would come out of this heist in similar boxes.

I was ushered back to my chair when they laid the box down and a bomb squad and a mortuary van approached them.

I nodded as Angél whispered, “Lo siento.” But I wasn’t really there. My head was bringing up memories of her and her lively nature. It skipped from one memory to the next. I welcomed the loneliness of that area of the tent. Unconsciously, I blurred out all that surrounded me. I had a private theatre in my head. A film full of memories was running on a loop.

*

I was in Palawan listening in to her and Tokyo. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but it didn’t seem like they cared who heard them either. They were in the dining room. Nairobi was in the hammock, Tokyo on a chair next to her. Since their arrival, I had started feeling as if I was a guest in my own home.

“Can you believe she slapped me?” Tokyo told Nairobi.

“Perdone? Que coño. Tell me she’s not joining us.”

“No lo sé, but I haven’t seen her mother and daughter today. I would assume she’d have left with them if she wasn’t coming.”

“She has a daughter?”

“Sí.”

“And they’re living here with the Professor?” Nairobi asked. “Madre Mía. It must be serious.”

“I don’t trust her. It’s like there’s a hawk in the room, waiting for the right moment to attack. Getting all the information to inform the others.”

“I was surprised when I saw her. But surely she wouldn’t involve her family, if that was the case. Why bring a kid and a demented old lady here?” There was silence for a while. I would have thought they had left the room if it wasn’t for the slight squeaking noise coming from the hammock. I peered through and saw Nairobi sitting up, nudging Tokyo. Her voice was more cheerful and inquisitive the next time she spoke. “Dime, what is the Professor like as a dad?”

“I’ve barely seen her girl… Can you imagine the Professor as your boyfriend? It doesn’t sit right with me.”

“It’s not like you haven’t hit on him before,” she teased.

I took that as my cue to enter the room. I ignored them and headed straight for the kitchen.

“I wouldn’t want him as my boyfriend though,” Tokyo said. I didn’t know which statement annoyed me more.

In the time before we all travelled to Italy, I did my best to give them the space they needed. I knew they needed time to get used to the idea that I was now one of them. Sergio did his best to include me, but I was happy to resort to the beach or to our bedroom. Besides, although the house was fuller than it had ever been, it also felt the emptiest. Although Paula’s drawings still decorated our fridge, there were no more markers lying around, none of her school books on the sofa, no one squealing urgently just to get our attention, none of her laughter. My mum wasn’t hovering around either, with her comforting smile and gentle arms ready to welcome me in them.

That morning, Sergio had woken up as soon as the sky started turning a lighter shade of blue, way before the sun had even perched on the horizon. He was off to make some travel arrangements, and I had been unable to go back to sleep ever since.

A cup of coffee in my hands, I soon found myself making my way to the beach. My fingers traced the steam swirling from it as I took in the peaceful view in front of me. I nearly tipped the hot liquid over me when a voice greeted me loudly from behind.

“Inspectora,” Nairobi said, “mind if I join you?”

I nodded. I was hardly going to usher her away, not when I knew working with them was vital for the success of this heist. I was still thinking about that when she started talking about children. I simply nodded away at first, uttering the odd ‘sí’ to show I was following. Until Paula’s name came up.

“How…?” I started to say.

“Cálmese. I wasn’t snooping around,” she said. “That cute sign near her room hardly makes it confidential information.”

I slowly warmed up to her. We talked about Paula and Axel, expressing our doubts, fears and dreams for them.

“At the end of the day, all we can do is do our best for them,” I told her.

“I got into the first heist for him. I thought I’d be able to give him all he wanted with that money. I couldn’t wait to run away with him. He was the only reason I did it. But he was only three and a half when they took him from me. I realised, mid-heist, I was a stranger to him. I would be selfish to take him from all he knew. I’m willing to do anything for him, even if it means I’ll live with this hole in my heart for the rest of my life.”

I nodded. I hardly ever talked about my past with anyone. Perhaps it was the serenity of that morning; the fact she had just bared her soul to me; or knowing that there were parts of that time of my life they knew about, and had since become public knowledge, that made me open up. “She was part of the reason why I had stayed with my ex. I thought a child should have a mother and a father. Until I realised it wasn’t the future I wanted for her. I didn’t want her to grow up thinking that what we had was the norm, or that it was the kind of behaviour she should ever accept.”

“So you ran?”

“Yes,” I said. Yes, if running meant filing for a divorce and going to my mum’s house in Almazán for a few days, knowing he would instantly guess where I had gone. Yes, if it meant bolting the door to mum’s house when he came knocking and threatening him with evidence I didn’t have.

“Good on you.”

“You’ll see your boy again. He’ll want to meet you. He’ll understand why you did it.”

“Do you think so?” Her face had lit up. It was full of hope for the future. 

“Of course.”

*

I was back at the Monastery. Nairobi’s hatred towards the patriarchy felt like a breath of fresh air. Over the years, I had grown tired of misogyny. Many just shrugged their shoulders and ignored the comments, but not her. It was the reason she and Palermo often clashed.

I heard her screaming about it at three in the morning. “The patriarchy is fucking unbearable,” she shouted.

I tried to stop Sergio from intervening, but it was harder to do when more doors squeaked open, when the shouting got louder and it was accompanied by loud thudding noises.

*

I was back in the Professor’s classroom, watching her bite the back of her pen as she listened attentively, back to dancing, drinking and smoking with her and the rest of the girls.

*

I was still reminiscing when I noticed everyone standing up again. I couldn’t see what they were looking at, but I noticed Tamayo and Alicia exchange glances. I saw the way Tamayo covered his face, the way the others looked at them, how Tamayo looked over his shoulders then bowed his head. I couldn’t understand any of the words being uttered, but in the silence that had ensued, I could just make out Rio’s voice. I didn’t know if it was my mind playing tricks on me, but after Nairobi’s death releasing information about Rio’s torture made sense. It was a missile of their own making; a missile that Sergio had planned to use; a video detailing Rio’s torture sent to the national and international press.

Unless something had already been said about me, I knew I would probably be part of the next missile. I watched as Tamayo, Alicia and Angél made their way to another section of the tent. They were soon joined by Prieto too. Although I couldn’t see them clearly, I took note of their body language. Tamayo’s face twisted as he waved his arms around him.

I imagined his face growing red; like a balloon being inflated, growing bigger, at risk of exploding. Until it suddenly did. With a bang.

I could see him shouting. Throwing papers around.

I closed and opened my eyes. For a minute, I could have sworn he was in front of me. Peering into my face. Only he wasn’t really there.

The lack of sleep was doing its job. I was going crazy.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's been ages since I last posted, but I'm finally back with another chapter. I hope you're still interested and that you like this chapter :).

Hours on end sat on the same chair were doing me in.

I chastised myself for the hours I used to spend at work with some of the people in that tent instead of with my family, for not looking at Sergio’s postcards before I did, for the times I had complained about Paula’s toys lying everywhere. I thought of the amount of times I stubbed my toe on her toys, that pain when stepping on one of her Lego pieces, the times I nearly tripped over her haphazardly placed shoes, the times I shouted at her for leaving footsteps everywhere. Now, I almost yearned for more of those moments.

My muscles were screaming, my head felt heavy, and my hands felt dry and shrivelled.

The tent was empty, bar for Alicia and Tamayo. Sergio had sent another missile and it had arrived during Prieto’s press conference. I caught glimpses of what had happened on one of the screens. Footage of a dug up coffin in the desert had given me goose bumps. I was scared to let my mind wander about what it had been used for.

A minute or two later, Alicia was the only one there. When she turned around and made her way towards me, I realised that in reality I was the only one inside that tent. Alicia was deep in her thoughts; eyes glazed, twirling a pen in her hand.

She took one long hard look at me. She didn’t say anything. She just stared at me; in the void; then, back at me. Her posture suddenly changed. She grimaced and hissed. The pen dropped to the floor with a loud thwack. More wrinkles formed on her forehead and nose, and her eyelids tightened. She hunched over, hands on her bulging tummy. 

My chair screeched across the floor as I stood up.

My movements felt sluggish, as if my body was failing to cooperate with me. Time had stayed still for a minute, but as I stood up, it rushed to catch up. Alicia straightened herself up as quickly as that pen had fallen from her hand. It was as though the previous minute had been a figment of my imagination. She tightened her ponytail, took out a pocket mirror and fixed her makeup.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“Mh-m.” I wasn’t too convinced. “Where are you going? Sit down.”

“Are you sure?”

“Why do you care?”

What could I say? I wasn’t even sure I knew the answer. She was no longer a friend. In fact, Alicia was the reason I was still there. She was the reason I had been stripped off my rights.

Earlier, I had given in. My full bladder felt like it was exerting pressure on all sorts of places. My lower back had started aching, and I could feel my pelvic floor muscles weakening. Holding it in was no longer an option and I was left with two choices, both as humiliating as each other. Standing up was a welcome relief on my legs and bum. I shuffled forward; my feet were numb. One of the police guards had hurried in. I forced myself to look him in the eyes as I pointed to the bucket. I refused to look down. He nodded, but continued to stare at me.

Standing in front of it, I swallowed, breathing heavily. I looked up and caught a female officer looking in. I held her gaze until she looked away. I didn’t know if it was out of pity, shame or guilt. I looked back at the guard whose gaze still hadn’t budged. I felt the heat rising to my cheeks, and hoped it wasn’t showing. I tried to look the other way, away from him and the eyes outside. I had hoped it would be a quick deal but I had underestimated how difficult it would be to pull my pants down with handcuffed hands. I knew they could see everything from the main section of the tent and I could feel their burning gaze on my naked skin. I would have been fine if it hadn’t been for the situation I was in, knowing that it was another attempt at belittling me. I bit my inner cheek as I squatted and attempted to relieve myself.

 _I’ve done this before_ , I kept repeating to myself, as I tried to transport myself to those memories.

Trees surrounded me, and I was just peeing in a bucket whilst camping. I was behind a bush when out hiking. I was walking home after an alcohol fuelled night; it was late, nobody could see me, no one bar the crickets that were chirping loudly.

Even once I was done, I was still experiencing pelvic cramps; it was almost worse than before. “Need a hand?” the guard had asked once I was done. His hands were on me before I could utter a word. He had half pushed me, half carried me back to my chair.

Alicia’s question came back to me. Why did I still care when she was probably the one behind every order that led me to this situation? Was the past really to blame? Would I care if it had been someone else who had done all this, if they had been in pain?

I would be lying if I came out with an outright no. Part of me would probably still care, but they would certainly be much easier to ignore.

She sat down. “ _We’re with you on this_ ,” she said, putting on a different voice, whilst drawing invisible quotation marks in the air. “Tell me, Raquel. How many times have you heard that line? Tell me you didn’t hear it when you were in my place.”

So many times, I thought. “ _You’ll be a national hero,_ ” Pietro had said. It was ironic, considering half of Spain ended up favouring us to the police. _He_ had quickly trampled on those sentiments though.

“Why did the media hound you during the first heist? Why did everyone find it so easy to believe you could be on the professor’s side, to dump everything on you?” Alicia asked.

I had gone through hours of interrogations after the first heist. For a while, the police headquarters and court were the only two places I dared leave the house for. The press had somehow gotten hold of personal data and had badgered me with questions, begged for an interview, and printed false statements when I refused.

“‘ _Cold, possibly medicated, unstable, a liar._ ’ I’m not the one who wrote those things. You were the perfect person for the job… in all areas. Not only were you a good negotiator and salvaged the lives of all the hostages in there, but your past and your gender also served as the right shield for them,” she said, pointing her finger to the side, towards the rest of the tent that had now started filling up again.

I wished I had been a fly on the wall during her and Tamayo’s conversation.

“And now… I’ve ended up in that same predicament. Recently widowed and pregnant. And did I act like they would expect in my circumstance?” she scoffed. “Joder, I pretended everything was okay for two months as I tortured a poor kid; not that I was the one giving all the orders there, mind you. They’ll have a field day with me; emotionally unstable, certifiably insane. An easy target… And meanwhile, and here’s the best bit, CNI, the government, everyone else out there gets away scot-free. Again. I mean, okay, there’s Pietro involved, too. Nuestros superiores? Nada. Sin culpa.” She broke into a fit of laughter, which made it difficult to understand what she was saying. “A firewall, a shield for the institutions. Una puta broma.”

“Alicia,” Tamayo interrupted her. “Come out here.”

I noticed what had gotten his knickers in a knot. The Professor was on the screen. He held something in his hands. Everyone listened, Sergio included. Everyone but me. This video was brief, but it was enough for Tamayo to hurl the chair in front of him to the ground.

I heard Tamayo’s muffled voice growing louder. I saw them look my way. I saw Alicia shaking her head, Ángel placing a hand over his mouth, Suárez scratching his head. 

Alicia sighed as she walked in. “El Professor quiere verte. Pero tenemos un problema. You’re meant to be dead… But they’ve figured a way round it.” She pursed her lips and placed a finger on her lower lips, playing with them. She took out her phone again and looked at herself. “Do my lips look dry?”

“What is it?” I asked. What did they want?

“They feel chapped,” she said, before looking back at me. “You could say you’ve changed sides. It was all an act and you were in on it.”

I shook my head.

Her phone was out again. I saw her scroll on social media. “The video’s everywhere.” She looked to her side, then, sat on the table in front of me giving them her back. She placed her phone on the table in front of me and clicked play.

Sergio, the Professor, came on the screen.

“Our colleague, Lisbon, has been caught. They’ve made us believe she has been executed.”

His voice was calm and collected, but I could hear the anguish that laced those words. 

“She was unarmed and they shot her. Twice. She was one of them, a friend and a colleague. If they were ready to do that to do her, they’re willing to do it to any one of us. They tampered with evidence to protect themselves.

“You can call me a doubting Thomas or a dreamer but I’ve learnt not to believe everything that is said. If she’s dead, I want to see her. Words can hide an array of possibilities. There are no reports of anyone finding her body. Her death still hasn’t been registered. Which brings us to another possibility. She is being illegally detained. If that’s the case, she still hasn’t appeared in front of a judge, which can only mean one thing – she’s been kidnapped by the institution that’s meant to protect her. No rights. No anything. To prove what I’m saying, here’s a recording of the last moment we heard from her.”

He stared at the camera as he lifted his hand, held the recorder and played the recording.

I heard my voice. Pleading. “ _Suárez, lower your weapon._ ”

I closed my eyes as I listened back to what happened in the barn, as the scene played out in my head. I was back there, just as helpless. Not knowing what was going to happen next. I saw the hatred in their eyes, the lack of compassion. The cold barrel of the gun was on my forehead. I felt its pressure again. Waiting for it to go off. Waiting for the world to go silent. Listening to Sergio, pleading for me to give him up.

I opened my eyes and noted how Sergio winced when the gun went off.

“This is all we know. You can make of it what you want. I request an inquest. I plead for reliable evidence,” he said.

“He begged you to give him up,” Alicia said. “So, think about what he would say in this situation. We don’t have much time. There are some very antsy people out there.”

As if on cue, Tamayo walked in. “What’s it going to be?” he said.

Alicia shook her head.

“Then make her,” he shouted. He grabbed her arm and lowered his voice as he talked to her. “I already have one investigation on my head. I don’t need another.”

“Internal Affairs are on the line,” Suárez announced, walking in.

“Coño. Tell them to expect a video in a short while; that we’re devising an attack; don’t answer.”

Suárez nodded and left.

Tamayo stormed to my side. His hand grabbed my hair tightly and pulled me towards him. “We’re going to record this video and you’re going to tell me where that asshole is, even if it’s the last thing we do,” he spat.

“I don’t know,” I said.

His grip intensified. “I don’t know. I don’t know,” he mimicked before letting me go. “We got your mother and daughter, by the way. Alberto is on the way to them just now. And whilst I doubt he’d want to harm the kid, no one’s there to protect your mother. It’s all in your hands…” I saw Alicia eyeing him closely, two lines formed above the bridge of her nose. “Get her photos of what the prisons there are like,” he told Alicia.

“I’m sure she knows.” The look on her face made me doubt the veracity of his statements.

“I won’t bother extraditing her. She’ll be dead before the end of the week. A heatstroke, a heart attack, or even worse. There have been intelligence reports that an attack on one of the prisons in Mindanao is imminent. It wouldn’t be the first of the sort. Maybe they’ll just wait until she’s there.”

“We were constantly on the move. I don’t know where he is.”

“How about a list of all accomplices then? All your safe places? Or better yet, the full plan? Maybe then I’ll negotiate getting your mother here safely. If not, the next place for you will be a black hole… Get a camera. She _will_ talk.”

Whilst this was the perfect opportunity for me to inform Sergio I was still alive, I also knew the implications of such a video. I’d be considered a traitor on both sides. My life would be more of a gamble.

“I’m not a –”

“What? A traitor?” He laughed and grabbed my chin, forcing me to look at him. “You’re Spain’s biggest traitor. This should be easy for you. Don’t forget, no one knows where you are. In a few hours, you will be even harder to trace. What Rio underwent will be nothing next to what they’ll do to you.”

When his hand landed on my cheek, my face went numb. The second slap knocked the breath out of me.

“Do you really think I’m going to give in just because you hold more power than me? Because of a smack in the face?” I laughed in his face; a mixture of hysteria, panic, a wish to attain some control. His red face riled me on. “I was married to one of you. I endured all of this for more than a year. So, you can thank Alberto for toughening me up.”

“Maybe we should give him a call then. Find out what was the breaking point.”

If he thought that sentence would send me down on my knees, begging for him to reconsider, he was mistaken. Calling quits on the relationship was more about me regaining power, deciding I had had enough. It wasn’t instigated by anything particular Alberto had done, even if by then the blows and humiliating moments were part of a never ending list. It was looking at Paula, and realising that she deserved better, realising that it wasn’t a normal I wanted her to grow up in. It was hearing my mother’s voice; hearing her “Hija, estas seguro que estas bien? I haven’t seen you in ages.” Her concern, missing her, knowing I’d been kept away from her for too long. It was a case at work, which made me feel like a hypocrite. It was me _finally_ remembering my worth.

The smirk on his face when he said that, and what he wanted to achieve by using those words only made me want to fight harder. Apparently, the police had gone from not believing my claims against Alberto to condoning the abuse. A fresh wave of anger radiated through my veins giving me energy.

I smiled and slowly got up on my feet. “Go ahead.”

That was how Alicia found me as she walked back in, a camera and a piece of paper in her hand.

“They won’t believe a word she says when she looks like that,” Alicia said. “Get her something to eat, let her go to the restroom to freshen up.”

“We don’t have time,” Tamayo said through gritted teeth.

“Or you can risk it.”

He stepped out of the tent, giving orders.

“Give them what they want,” Alicia whispered. “Buy yourself time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I found myself reading and rereading parts of this chapter, and wasn't sure of certain parts of it which is why it took me ages to upload. So, I really hope you like it. As always, feedback is greatly appreciated!


	14. Chapter 14

An officer had come in with a wet face cloth and a sandwich.

“Get those handcuffs off her,” Alicia ordered as she set up the camera. “And get her a pencil.”

Tamayo looked at her. “A pencil?”

“You’ve clearly never worked with her,” she commented.

Being able to stretch my hands freely was a welcome relief. Tasting something other than water felt glorious. I ravished the sandwich, and picked at the leftover crumbs, until Tamayo grabbed its carton box from in front of me. My stomach sounded like an annoyed dog. It growled louder than it did before I had eaten.

I looked down at the statement they had written. “Why didn’t you stop them before they entered if you knew what was going to happen?” I said. “How will you explain all your failed attempts or why you still haven’t ended it if you’ve had intel all along?”

“That’s not the most important issue now.”

“Not if they don’t believe you.”

“Then make it believable,” he said. “You have five minutes.”

I pulled my greasy hair back into a bun and pondered over the words in front of me. I used the second pencil Alicia had given me and scribbled a few changes.

Tamayo’s eyes didn’t leave me. He was pacing, scratching his head, looking at his watch. It didn’t take long for him to storm back in. “You’ve had enough time,” he said, pushing the table in front of me to the back corner of the room. He fiddled with the camera. “Qué coño?” he shouted. “Alicia, how does this thing work?”

She walked in calmly. A drink in her hand. “Calmése, Luis.” It was Alicia that went over what I had written. She nodded and handed it back to me. She then played with the camera, and soon she was grinning. “Ta da. Maybe you ought to stretch your legs a bit, Raquel. Stand up, let’s see how it looks.”

My muscles were pleased to be put to use.

“Now move back… Slightly more.”

She clicked her fingers and ordered the guard that was standing next to the entrance to move the chair. She looked at the camera again. “Lose the paper.”

“What do you mean?” Tamayo said.

“She knows what she has to say,” she told him, before proceeding to look at me through the camera. “Maybe smile a little... or maybe not.”

“Alicia, we don’t have time for this.”

“The key’s in the detail,” she replied.

“Think of your puta madre,” Tamayo whispered to me. “One word out of line and I’ll personally make sure she’s sent to the worst jail.”

“Done,” Alicia uttered. She nodded her head in my direction. “The floor’s yours.”

The red light was on. The guard’s machine gun was pointed at me. I looked straight at the camera lens. For a minute, I was unsure of how I was meant to start. It felt like I had been robbed of the ability to speak, and I wasn’t sure what would come out of my mouth if I even tried.

I looked at them: at Tamayo, Alicia, and all the officers on the other side of the tent. They were all looking at me expectedly. 

I looked down at my feet, and thought of my mother and Paula – the two most innocent people in this whole mess.

“I’m Raquel Murillo, alias Lisboa,” I started. “Some of you might recognise me as the inspectora in charge of the heist at The Royal Mint. I’ll start by holding my hands up to my own misjudgements. I let the Professor lure me with theories of idealism.” It physically hurt saying this. I hoped Sergio would realise I had to do this. He had been written down as a psychopath before, a heartless terrorist. It was the best I could do. “Over the last few months, I have re-joined the Police to bring down the Dalí group. Whilst I never condoned what was being done to Aníbal Cortés, I recognised the implications of a second heist; from putting more lives at risk, to the collapse of the economy.

“Criminals often wear masks, and we had to play their game. As you can see, I am alive and well. I am here out of my own free will. The recording released by the Professor contains what we wanted them to hear. I pretended to be one of them and then pretended to have been killed. I was in the Professor’s study for every meeting. I was there as Silene Oliviera devised a plan to get the gold out of the Bank, as Daniel Ramos drew maps of the Bank, as the Professor explained every step of the plan. So we are now in a better position than before.” I was careful not to mention anyone the police or the public didn’t already know, and purposefully lied and looked at the camera as I said all that. “We know their plans and we are waiting for the right time to strike… But we need to be careful. The lives of the hostages in there come first. We can never rejoice on winning this war if we are left with a massacre. But it doesn’t have to come to that,” I said, hoping I wouldn’t be proven wrong, hoping that no more blood would be shed.

“There are some good people in there; mothers, fathers, lovers, friends.” I saw the look on Tamayo’s face as I said that. I saw the guard’s grip on the machine gun tightening. I saw Alicia signalling them to wait. “They are hurt by the injustices of society; they want to right all wrongs. I don’t blame them. They, too, have suffered. But how long should we keep going back and forth? A life for a life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. It is a code of law dating back to Ancient Babylon. A country ruled by chaos. Chaos that ultimately led to its destruction. There are criminals in all areas of society, but war is never an answer. No side ever wins in war.

“I’ll speak directly to the people in the Bank of Spain because I know that their heart is in the right place. Dragging this further is futile. Rio has been freed. Let the hostages go. Let us end this. I plead to your good nature… Spain,” I ended, looking directly at the camera, “estoy contigo.” There was only one reason why I had added those last two words. I hoped that Sergio’s memory served him well.

“That wasn’t so difficult, now was it?” Tamayo said as Alicia switched off the camera.

“You did well,” she said.

It had taken all I had. As soon as the camera lights were off, I couldn’t hold the tears in any longer. I was shaking more than the flags on top of the bank of Spain. I could barely register what was being said or what was happening around me. All I could hear was the thumping sound of my heart. My clothes felt heavy on me. The air in the room, the noise, everyone’s eyes on me, my very own skin were stifling me. 

A short while later I saw myself on the screens.

Alicia popped her head in. “You can come out to watch it.”

I watched myself look down at my feet. I heard myself stutter. I saw a slight smile appear on my face when I mentioned the others.

I felt defeated when I saw Tamayo smirk. I questioned myself, and why I had allowed them to convince me to do it. From the corner of my eyes, I saw Alicia, and I knew that she was part to blame.

“You’ll be fine,” she had told me when we were alone. “And as far as I know, so is your mum.”

There had been an element of sincerity in her voice. The look in her eyes had changed. It was a look I knew. I had seen it so many times in the past. It saw me through so many turbulent times.

*

After the Academy, the relationship between us had changed. Although I saw her almost every day at work, I had started forgetting the taste of her lips and the touch of her fingers on my bare skin. Yet, she was always there when I needed her.

One night, after drinking almost a full bottle of wine all by myself, I started missing her more than I cared to admit. Without thinking it twice, my hands ended up reaching for my phone and I was soon dialling her number. My voice gave the game away. I stumbled over my words and I knew I wasn’t making any sense. I must have sounded bad, for she was soon at my door.

“Blurt it out,” she said. Alicia was only two years older, but it sometimes felt like she was much older, more mature.

I had a cigarette in one hand, a shot of whiskey in another.

“I don’t know what I want anymore,” I told her. I had previously been excited to join the force, yet five months later, I was already doubting everything. I wasn’t even sure why I had enrolled for a degree in the same field. I felt void of energy and completely clueless on what I wanted in life. I looked at Alicia and saw her bursting with energy as she went from one thing to another. It was as though the tables had turned.

“Give it time, cariño. You’re still finding your own feet. Besides, what’s the worst that can happen? You’ll discover it’s not for you, and perhaps you’ll get an extra grey hair or two, but it will also be something else on your resume, another adventure. And you’ll get to spend more time with me,” she said as she winked. “But you’ll be fine, kiddo, you’ll see. And if not, I’ll be here to help you through it.”

She had stuck to her word. Or at least, she had attempted to, until we drifted further apart and fell out.

*

Back in that tent, when it had been just us two, her eyes seemed to be part of a pendulum. Her gaze had oscillated from gentleness, to emptiness, to anger. It was the same gaze I had grown used to seeing in the mirror after the first heist.

Maybe I wanted to trust her. Maybe I had no other option, no other choice.

Maybe I had trusted the wrong person. Maybe I was tired, and the current situation had robbed me off the ability to reason things out properly.

Maybe I had only backed myself into a corner, in a more precarious position than before.

Only time could tell. 

Handcuffs were put back on my wrist, but I was allowed to stay in the main section of the tent. “It’s not like they’ll take you back,” Tamayo said.

A phone rang. “Colonel, it’s for you.”

I shuffled nervously as I looked around me. I felt Angél’s hand on the small of my back. He offered his chair and his coffee. Although my legs had been begging to be stretched, I relented. My muscles felt sore, almost as though I had just completed an exhausting work out.

I closed my eyes as I took a sip of coffee. It felt smooth on my tongue. It was a semblance of normality. Eyes closed, that sweet bitter taste took me back to early mornings in Palawan. If it wasn’t for the noise around me I could imagine I was still there. The fan circling air in the tent could be the fresh breeze blowing my hair out of my face. Unfortunately, Palawan was a distant memory. One I missed. One I doubted I’d ever get to experience again.

“That was Internal Affairs,” Tamayo said. “They believed your statement so they won’t be investigating. Even asked me to thank you.” He signalled with his head to Suárez and Alicia.

Promptly, Suárez’s hands were around my arms. I shrugged him off but he only tightened his grip. I was marched back into my section of the tent, back on the same uncomfortable chair, the table back in its place.

“This isn’t over for you,” Tamayo reminded me. “You’re back to where you were. Before your old group of criminals were mourning you, now they despise you. They would probably do anything to find out where you are and get you killed before you reveal more of what you know... As for us, if you don’t live up to that statement, we can easily make good on my previous promise.” He snatched the pencil out of my hair and left the room.

“You let him know you’re still on their side, didn’t you?” Alicia said, as calm as ever.

“How could I?”

Her eyes opened wide. “Raquel Murillo, you didn’t spend ten years studying, twenty within the Police Corps working with criminals, and two months planning a heist for nothing. I need to know if the Professor is about to storm in here all guns blazing.” She put a hand on her growing belly. “I’m a vulnerable woman,” she said.

I chuckled and shook my head. She sat there staring at me for a while. I had a feeling that she wanted to say something. I gave her quizzing looks, but she simply ignored me.

She had already made her way to the plastic curtain when she turned round, paused, and looked at me again. “You know, maybe I should have listened to you all those years ago.” And with that she was gone.

It took me a few minutes to understand what she could have meant. There was another press conference. This time Alicia was on the screen. She looked as bold as ever, smiling and laughing. What she had said earlier came back to mind. “ _I’ve ended up in that same predicament_ ,” she had said. “ _A shield for the institutions_.” I studied Tamayo’s expressions. He was struggling to loosen his tie, shaking his head. He walked round and clenched his hands. One thing was clear. Alicia hadn’t followed his demands.

With Alicia gone and Tamayo otherwise occupied, I was left alone. Alone with my thoughts and memories. They were all I had to keep me going.

I kept going over what I had said in the video. All the things I could have said better. All the things I shouldn’t have said.

I pictured the gang’s reactions to it. I could almost hear Tokyo shouting, “Traitor.” I could see the look of disgust on their faces. I could see the hatred in their eyes. I saw Sergio’s pained look again. “I told you not to trust her,” I heard Tokyo say. “Una maldita rata.” 

I wondered if Sergio would study it for clues, if he would be too overcome with emotion to understand what I had said.

“ _Raquel, everything is better because you’re with me_ ,” he had said. “ _Because I’m in love.”_

I had been longing to hear those words, even if during all our months together, all of his actions were proof of his love. And yet, despite all I knew, his previous words had instigated doubts.

 _“After what you’ve told me, I think I’ll be able to endure three hours,_ ” I had told him. Three hours. If only. And yet, hours later, I was still clinging to those words.

The aftertaste of coffee still lingered in my mouth. I closed my eyes and willed myself to repeat the steps of meditation I had practised with Sergio.

*

“You have to clear your mind,” I heard him say. He was behind me, one hand on my shoulder, the other kneading the muscles in my upper back, helping me relax. A smile had crept onto my face. My mind was more active than before. “Focus on your breathing,” he scolded.

“The house is empty,” I told him as I turned to look at him, a grin on my face. “Paula’s gone out with my mum and Ana.”

“No, focus.”

In our last few weeks in Palawan, before Tokyo had even shown up, my nightmares had made a sudden comeback. It was as though my mind had known there was a period of unrest heading our way.

After leaving Alberto, I often used to wake up covered in a thin sheet of sweat. Therapy had helped me deal with them; as I regained my confidence, I was also able to fight off the demons that were waking me up in the middle of the night. Much to my distaste, the nightmares had returned after the first heist during Paula’s custody trial. As disheartening as it was, I had been warned about it; the trial brought back memories of the past, so it was somewhat expected. They had then grown few and far in between upon moving to Palawan, and it had been almost a year since I had had one.

I had dismissed the first one. I blamed myself for eating one too many Klepon balls right before going to bed. I knew having late-night snacks could contribute to an increased risk of nightmares. I snuggled up closer to Sergio when I had my second one, and attempted to obliterate it from my memory. However, the third one had me staring in my cup of coffee at four in the morning wondering what had been triggering them. I attempted to pretend I was fine, but the more I tried to ignore them, the more persistent they became. I willed myself not to think about them before going to bed, but the very thought was keeping me up. I tried to tire myself out. Our bed saw more action than usual, but it still wasn’t enough. More often than not, I would slip out of bed once Sergio was asleep, and spend the early hours of the morning scrubbing the floor, cleaning the bathroom tiles, washing the windows or doing one workout after another. There were days when I would fall asleep on the outside hammock, others when I slipped back in bed at four or five in the morning, others when I skipped out on sleep and would take a short nap in the afternoon instead. Sergio didn’t say anything at first. I thought he hadn’t realised, until I woke up gasping for air, beads of sweat covering my face, Sergio’s hands caressing my hair.

“Raquel, you’re safe. I’m here,” he had whispered.

We didn’t talk much about what had happened, but the next morning he was more quiet. He spent a lot of time in his study and only came out for dinner. He had this studious look on his face.

“Sergio, cariño, are you okay?” my mum had asked.

He had simply nodded his head, fixed his glasses and carried on eating.

His head bowed, he cleaned the table and loaded the dishes, then hurried back to the study.

“You can talk to me, you know,” I told him the next day, as I saw him heading back to his study.

“Yes. Have you ever considered mindfulness meditation?” he asked.

“Meditation? No, why?”

“Your nightmares. It can be helpful. It can help you sleep better and might keep nightmares at bay. There is a downside though. It doesn’t work the same on everyone. Periods of deep concentration can also help flashbacks to arise. I don’t know if you’re comfortable with that.”

“Have you been reading about this?”

He nodded. “I’d like to speak to a therapist about it though if you’re interested. You might even benefit from –”

I smiled as he talked to me about it. “You knew.”

He nodded.

“Why didn’t you just talk to me?” I said. It was clear that he had been researching the topic for quite a few days.

“I didn’t know if you were ready to. After Andrés, I didn’t want to speak to anyone. Besides, I wanted to find out more before I said anything.”

“I’ve struggled with them before,” I told him.

“You don’t owe me an explanation. Nothing. I’m here to listen and hold you if you want to talk, but do it at your own pace and because you want to, not because of me,” he said.

“I want to. I ought to.” I opened up to him then. I felt like I owed it to him, in a way. I had come to the realisation that whether I kept it to myself or not, my nightmares were still weighing on him. “ _Stop bottling your emotions_ ,” my therapist used to say. _“It’s a vital step in learning how to look after yourself.”_

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you on here. This site has been a big source of comfort throughout this year; from reading, exploring new worlds and interacting with so many beautiful and creative people on here, to writing and uploading my own stories. If you've ever commented or clicked on that kudos button, THANK YOU! Please know that it truly means the world to me. I hope you all have a wonderful new year! May 2021 be brighter and more positive than this last year.


	15. Chapter 15

The nightmares weren’t always the same. There was Alberto snatching Paula, the courts giving him full custody of her, the island being surrounded by military boats. There were times when none of it made sense; others that compiled all my fears and presented them to me in one messed up dream. No matter what happened in them, there was always a darkness waiting to take over, a lingering sense of doom that suffocated me. They often ended the same way, with the same profound gut-wrenching sadness that often took a while to shake off.

Talking to Sergio had helped, and yet, even though weeks had passed and so much had happened in between, the images from those dreams were still prevalent in my mind. It was almost as though I had really lived through the content of those nightmares, and now that I was alone, those images were coming back to haunt me.

I was in a dark room, desperately looking around me trying to figure out where I was. There was a loud buzzing noise, before it suddenly went quiet, and then, a gun went off. There were flashes of light coming from everywhere. Radio stations, news channels all whispering my name. A judge banging his gavel down. Paula screaming from across the hall. I was crying, yearning for it to stop. My mind seemed to be stuck on the reverse button, and I had no control over it.

Stuck in that tent, there was nothing to do but wait. It had been hours since Alicia had appeared on the screens. With her gone, nobody had said anything else to me.

My heart was back to playing games with me. It was as if I was racing in the confines of that tent. I wanted to join in on the marathon my heart was participating in. I wanted to run, climb up the plastic walls of the tent, to scream, freeze, and make it all stop. I closed my eyes and tried to regulate my breathing.

My head felt heavy. Every inch of me was tired. I willed myself to sleep. It killed time and gave me some much-needed rest.

Despite the nightmares, there had been a time when falling asleep felt like one of the best parts of the day. It was what I looked forward to when life was throwing one dart after another and I was treated as the bullseye. Once the nightmares had been taken care of, bed was a safe place. After work, there was nothing better than removing my shoes, getting out of my clothes, and falling back onto my bed. There were times when I didn’t even bother getting into bed, the mattress and soft pillows were welcoming enough. They were all that I needed, all that I would have been craving in the last few hours. Sleep often came quickly, especially after a successful case.

This hadn’t always been the case though. When I was younger, I would often trade sleep for any of the good things in life; food, alcohol, parties, a good fuck. Towards the end of my relationship with Alberto, I often preferred doing the most annoying house chores at night rather than lie in bed next to him. I preferred going through the day with red-rimmed eyes due to lack of sleep rather than from tears or pain.

As I thought of the past and present, of nightmares and peaceful sleep, I felt my state of awareness lowering.

The darkness of the tent was soon replaced by sunshine, blue skies and waves crashing against the shore. In my dream, I was on the beach, warm sand amongst my toes. Paula was building sandcastles, and Sergio was next to her, helping her. His hair was ruffled up. His glasses were full of smudges.

“What is the thing around castles called?” she asked. “The one where they keep the alligators.”

“Moat,” Sergio instantly answered. “That is actually a myth. It would be impossible for alligators to survive. Instead, some moats contained eels and fish which they would use for food.”

“Myth?” Paula asked.

“A misconception,” he said. I looked at him, raising my eyebrows. “A false belief. It’s like a story that people created.”

Paula nodded, happy with that reply. I realised how quickly she had grown. As I looked at her, playing so carefree, sand all over her, I wished I had spent more days like this with her. Her childhood had consisted of numerous routines put together to form the different days of the week. I wished I had been more present instead of spending long hours at work and constantly running from one errand to the next. I felt guilty, even though at the time I felt like I didn’t have much of a choice. She had grown so accustomed to my serious forlorn look that she now often commented about my smiles. Truth be told, she had always had a thing for my smiles. As a toddler, she would often climb onto my lap and attempt to put her tiny fingers onto the corner of my mouth. She would attempt to stretch my lips and I always complied.

Soon, Paula’s attention wavered. Men dressed in black were running in our direction, their rifles pointed at us. I didn’t know where they had come from. We were surrounded. There was nowhere to run or hide, and there was no use trying.

Suddenly, I was alone. Paula and Sergio had vanished. It was just me, and a group of armed men. They were dressed in black, cladded with protective gear, so much so that only their eyes could be seen.

I noticed the badge. They were Police. Spanish police.

“Traitor,” one of them said. They laughed. Their hands were on me. My face was rammed into the sand. Sand particles made their way into my mouth and nose. Their force strengthened as I attempted to move my head round as I struggled to breathe. A knee pressed into the small of my back as one of them pinned me down. They grabbed my arms with such force I felt like my shoulders were about to be dislocated. They tied me up, and then felt me up to check for weapons.

They nudged me forward with their rifles. The sand seemed to stretch for miles on end. All of a sudden, I realised that it was no longer the same pale cream shade as that of Palawan. I was now surrounded by dunes.

It was then that I saw it. A hole. A box.

“Don’t do this,” I begged. “Please.”

“Is it deep enough?” one of them asked.

They lit a cigarette as they waited. I was on my knees in front of them. Hazy o-rings floated upwards, before distorting and dissipating, forming a small cloud.

They blew their smoke in my face leaving me coughing. The smoke smelled different to usual, and made me wonder what they were smoking. Its smell seemed somewhat stronger. It permeated everything and filtered through every inch of me. 

I coughed again. What were they smoking? It had made its way to my lungs. It felt as though someone had forced coal down my throat. I felt my mouth running dry.

The smoke smelt of kerosene, and yet they were happily inhaling it. I was chocking and spluttering whilst they acted like normal. They had one arm folded in front of their chest, the other hand holding the cigarette. They stared ahead, completely unbothered.

It was hot, so hot. It felt like I was on a grill skillet being fried alive.

I could hear chaos around me. Shouting. Fire crackling. I wasn’t sure where the noise was coming from.

My mouth was dry. It was difficult to breath. It stunk of plastic burning.

I had squeezed my eyes shut. They stung, but I forced them open.

I was suddenly engulfed in smoke. Thick dark smoke. Tongues of fire lapping at the walls of plastic to my right.

I willed my body into action. Standing up had made everything spin, but the fire on my side was enough to spur me on. I crouched down and tried to find my way to fresher and cooler air. I kept bumping into things. The metal tables scorched my hands.

I moved away from the flames, but I was unsure of the way out. I felt lost in the tent. I was confused as to how I had slept through whatever it was that had happened, and yet, even in my dazed state I knew that a fire could destroy a tent in less than a minute. I had to get out of there, and I had to do it fast.

I was on my knees. Crawling. Coughing.

I was out of breath. I could barely see. My legs failed to respond.

“Ayudo.” It came out as a whisper. I was too hoarse to shout. I tried to bang on the floor, to move one of the chairs hoping they’d make some noise. 

A pair of hands wrapping around my shoulders forced me to open my eyes. “Come on,” a familiar voice said. He helped me up and half carried me out of the tent.

The noise outside was too loud. There were firefighters, police, and protestors. Shouting, chanting, sirens wailing.

“Raquel, are you okay?” the man holding me asked. My knees felt like they were about to cave in but I nodded. He had glasses, a beard. He held me up, and took me to a quieter corner. “You need to be seen to.”

Another person approached us. I heard them talk as I rested my head against the wall behind me gasping for air.

“Sierra sent me,” I heard the stranger say.

“A doctor is what she needs.”

“I only follow orders.”

“Do you have any clearance? A badge?”

I was slipping in and out of consciousness, but I could feel him helping me up again. I tried to put in some effort, but I knew he was practically carrying me. “Ángel?” It suddenly clicked. “Thank you.”

“You deserve better, Raquel. You don’t deserve any of this.”

I smiled weakly as he helped me into the car awaiting us. Alicia was already in it. A baseball cap on her head.

I looked at the flames as I sat down. They burnt violently, growing bigger and taller, dancing in the wind. They were a manifestation of the joy and anger experienced by the crowd that had gathered outside, the police, and everyone involved in this heist. The flames viciously consumed everything in their path like the police had been willing to do as long as they could take us down.

Suddenly the crackling gave way for a thunderous roar. Heat radiated outwards. I involuntary ducked as the tent blew up. The car windows rattled and the air racketed to the blast of the explosion.

“Do you have any cuff keys on you?” Alicia asked him, seemingly unbothered. “She’s hardly going to run away as it is.”

Ángel looked shaken up. His eyes were on the ball of flame that had completely destroyed the tent. “Sí, sí,” he absentmindedly said.

I winced as he removed them. They were still hot to touch. I had blisters and cut skin where they’d been.

He barely registered what was happening as the car roared to life. There were no questions asked. No goodbyes.

I closed my eyes the moment we were on the road. The wind on my face was a welcome relief, even if breathing still hurt.

“Raquel,” Alicia called out, waking me. “Where’s the Professor? Where’s Sergio?”

I stared out the window. I focused on the night sky, at the busy streets. I looked at the young people queuing up outside a club, at the people sitting outside restaurants waiting for their food, at the couple walking on the pavement hand in hand.

“Raquel?”

“I don’t know.” Talking hurt. My voice was barely higher than a whisper.

“I’m not trying to catch you out. I’ll give you my phone and you can call him.”

I shook my head. 

In reality, I had a list of places of where he could be. Even though I didn’t know which part of the plan they were currently in, something told me that he was still on the outskirts of Madrid; close to the highway leading to Colmenar; 29 kilometres on the M607, to be exact.

“Joder, Raquel. Even on death’s door you still have to be so stubborn.”

“Shh,” the driver suddenly said, turning on the volume of the radio.

“Múltiples disparos escuchados en el Banco de España. Un incendio frente al Banco. El juez ordena detener a Alicia Sierra.” They were the first three news headlines. “Multiple shots heard at the Bank of Spain. A fire in front of the Bank. The judge orders the arrest of Alicia Sierra.”

“I never knew you were into worldly events,” Alicia jokingly said.

“Preliminary reports indicate that the fire that broke out and destroyed the police tent outside the Bank of Spain was deliberately started. It is believed that today’s arson attack took the life of at least one person inside the tent. Although investigations are still ongoing and the police have failed to comment, it seems highly likely that the former inspector Raquel Murillo might have lost her life in this arson attack.”

Alicia was chuckling in the passenger front seat. “My one regret is that I can’t see their faces when they realise you got away. Again.” She turned to me.

“This was all… on you?” I asked between coughs.

“And Raúl,” she said, pointing to the driver. “Genius plan, no?”

“Very original.” It wasn’t like she hadn’t already tried to make people believe I was dead. “They’ll soon realise it was all a ploy to get me out.” I took deep breaths between each word.

“And by then you’ll be long gone.”

“You’re insane.”

“I was going to leave a tooth or two, but I’m not sure you and your boyfriend would have appreciated that. You see, as much as I want to put a bullet through his head, I also know that I could do with his help. And you’re my peace offering. Besides, you need a doctor, and I can hardly take you to a hospital.” She threw her phone to me. “If he loves you as much as you say he does, think about what he must be going through.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm posting this with bated breath. I hope you like the twist it's taken. Please let me know what you think of it!
> 
> A little fun fact: Whilst writing this, I noticed that I was dry coughing every now and again, and when I tried to think about what could have caused it, my head instantly thought of the fire; as though it was the most logical thing ever. Turned out, the story was probably the reason for it (when I wasn't thinking about it, I was perfectly fine) - I think, I've spent too much time in Raquel's head. 😂

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked it, I would love to hear from you. Kudos and comments are greatly appreciated. Thank you :) x


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